There have been hundreds of stories of kindness, selflessness, and heroism shared over the past two weeks in response to Helene and the wildfires in North Dakota…but there is one story that has yet to be told. I mean, if we’re being technical it has, actually, been told close to a dozen times, but it hasn’t yet been told HERE, on North Dakota Nice, today. This has not been without an extreme amount of patience exercised by my nine-year-old, the hero (his grandmother’s words) of this tale, who confirmed several times that I would write about it. He also lobbied for me to talk about it on North Dakota Today, but I had other topics queued up – which, disappointingly to Nine, felt more pertinent than the 15 million people (his estimation) he had saved. C’est la vie.

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon, and Nine and I were on our way to Minneapolis for the weekend. As I am an excellent mother who is excellent at preparing healthy, car-appropriate meals and snacks for the five-hour drive, we stopped at McDonald’s on the way out.

Patrons in the McDonald’s drive-through had the choice of ordering from either a left or right lane. When we entered the drive-through, Nine said,

“Go right, go right.”

To which I said,

“Okay.”

And then I did that – not knowing that this choice would change the fate of history and the lives of, at a minimum, 15 million people.

We ordered, and pulled up behind the car in front of us.

We sat for a few minutes discussing the type of music to play on the drive – we settled on his brother’s “Hockey Mix (Clean),” which I would argue was not all that clean – before Nine pointed to the nearby dumpsters and said,

“Hey, is that a fire?”

It was a fire. The dumpsters were surrounded by a gated fence, and the handle(?) of one side of the gate was burning. The fire was small; from our vantage point, I’d describe it as roughly six-inches wide. If we had gone left instead of right, we wouldn’t have seen it.

“That is a fire,” I said. “Now what should we do about that?”

I mentally sorted through the options. If I had water in my car, I could probably put it out myself. I looked around; no water. It wasn’t enough of a fire to call 9-1-1, and it was windy enough that if I did call 9-1-1 the fire would probably spread before they got there. We were still several cars back from the building window, so I couldn’t just wait and tell them when I got up there, and I knew if I sent Nine in to raise the alarm he would do that in A VERY BIG WAY.

I Googled the number for the McDonald’s. A gentleman answered on the second ring.

“Hey, uh, you have a fire out here,” I said.

“We do?” He said.

A few seconds later, the side door to the building opened and a gentleman – presumably the same gentleman – stepped out. He surveyed the fire, went back inside, and came out with a large pair of gloves.

“What’s he going to do with those gloves?” Nine asked.

“I bet he’s going to try and snuff it,” I said. “Sometimes you can cover a fire and it will go out.”

“That’s not going to work,” Nine said.

The gentleman whacked the fire with his gloves. It did not work.

At this point, we had to move up in the line and pay, and so Nine turned around in his seat and narrated the rest.

“He’s bringing out water. OH, he’s dumping the water. OOOH, it’s smoking. OHHHhHhHh, I think he put it out.”

“Phew!” I said. “Good thing you spotted that before it became a big fire.”

“Yeah, you didn’t even see it,” Nine said.

“No one saw it,” I said. “Only you.”

“I probably saved 11 million…15 million people,” he said.

“There’s no way to prove that you didn’t,” I said.

“You should tell the McDonald’s worker that I was the one who told them about the fire,” he said, pointing to the teenager handing us our food through the window.

“I bet he knows,” I said. “Should we call Bubbe and tell her?”

“YES,” he said.

We called Bubbe.

“The grease could have started on fire,” she said, “and so you probably did save 15 million people. You are a hero.”

“Yes, I am,” he said.

The hero got ice cream at the gas station for his efforts. He dipped his McDonald’s fries into it.

“This is how heroes eat fries,” he told me.

“Naturally,” I said.

“Should we tell someone else?” He asked after we recounted the entire event over the phone to Kyle.

“Do you want to tell your teacher on Monday?,” I asked.

“I have a good idea,” he said. “You can write about it on North Dakota Nice and then everyone will know.”

“That is a good idea,” I said, turning up the music (clean) as we drove down the road.

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The photo above is of our hero on the giant slide at the pumpkin patch in Shakopee. Here is a photo of the actual fire:

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This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Charlotte Myrdal, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a brief look at North Dakota Niceness happening on the western part of the state as they fight wildfires. Check it out. (Valley News Live)

While this isn’t nice at all, here is the latest (and here is a rancher’s account) on the hard work of first responders, farmers, and the community to fight the fires out west.  At the bottom are some ways you can help. (KFYR TV) (Minot Daily News)

Voltaire’s Lacey Homen recently completed a patriotic new mural inside the Velva American Legion. (Minot Daily News)

There are four former UND hockey players on the ice for the Ottawa Senators. (Grand Forks Herald)

Drs. Obritsch and Obritsch really, really like babies. (KFYR TV)

Have any old toys?  The Toy Scout is coming to Fargo. (Valley News Live)

The East Grand Forks Senior High’s volleyball team raised $11,000 for two women fighting breast cancer. (Grand Forks Herald)

Benefit accounts for the wildfires:

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