So here I am waiting for the natural gas company to come check my water heater, per recommendation of the fire department who left my house a few minutes ago. So I was boiling some water to hard boil some eggs, not in conjunction with Easter or anything, but I just wanted some protein. While I was blow drying my hair with egg whites to make it curly, which was what triggered the idea to hard boil the eggs, I suddenly heard the dreaded fire alarm and it was shrieking "FIRE FIRE" in this monotone yet urgent and creepy voice. So I ran upstairs, truthfully unprepared to do anything about a fire (I didn't have a phone with me or water) but just natural instinct to run towards the cause of the scene. Fortunately, there was no fire, but there was smoke and it did stink. This was the first time I've boiled anything in this little old house I now call my humble abode and I guess the stove is lazy and doesn't really like being used, so it put up a fight. Or it was probably dirty and the crumbs were causing the smoke. Anyway, I couldn't "hush" the fire alarm as it claimed to be capable of doing and then it started yelling "Carbon Monoxide" instead of fire, in that same passive-aggressive voice which got me a little nervous, especially because I lost a friend and his father in high school to that very poisoning.
Well I took off that little frazzler of an alarm so it would stop yelling at me and opened the doors and continued getting ready for the day. I kept getting paranoid that I heard footsteps upstairs and that now a carbon monoxide warning would turn into the invitation of an unwelcome visitor, so I came upstairs and started getting ready up there. All the while, I was considering the instructions on the alarm 1) Disable 2) Go outside 3) Call fire department or 911. I really didn't want to call anybody, I just wanted to go to the temple, but I kept thinking about the new roommate who moved in, who wasn't here, but who would inevitably come home some time today, and boy would I not want to make the papers as the girl who killed her new roommate, so I decided to make a call. I made sure not to call 911, just the normal fire department line, hoping they would come casually, calmly and inconspicuously.
After a few minutes, I heard the sirens. I prayed they weren't coming to my house, that they were for something else. "Please, not the sirens. Please." Well up pulls the big red one, complete with flashing lights and the sirens and two big guys in full UNIFORM with TANKS on their backs running up to my door. "You called?" They asked. "Yeeeah." I responded. So they came and checked it out and said it was fine. Turns out carbon monoxide can only be triggered by water heaters or regular heaters, not stoves, which I did Google carbon monoxide but didn't learn about how its specific causes, just what it is, until after the big red one had to come. They did look at the water heater though and detected some natural gas, which could turn into a fire, so they requested I call the natural gas company straightaway. I did that and they told me to exit my house immediately but stand by so I could let them in, which I didn't do and am not doing, but I will sit by, inside. So as I was doing that, a knock at the door that I thought was the gas company, faired my landlord saying he saw a fire truck here. The landlord that came over on a Sunday evening to blow up my air mattress because I didn't have batteries for the pump. Yeah, turns out I'm THAT tenant.
Well all of this Saturday afternoon stealing fire business took me back to several instances with the fire department that I've had before. 1) On my LDS mission in Italy when I locked the keys inside the apartment. That happened on several occasions, but this time the elders weren't available to let us in with the spare key, so in Italy, the fire department handles those kinds of situations. And they use lights and sirens. Later on in my mission, while serving on an island, we were cooking an American dinner for our favorite Italian convert family who was inviting their friends over to learn more about these crazy Americans who leave their house for two years to come talk about God and happiness and truth, all the while dressed in mid-calf length skirts. (Do you know how hard those are to find??) Well during that cooking experience, I left a little towel on the stove which happened to still be hot and it actually did start the towel on fire. They took all these pictures with me looking through the hole and I never let that one down, even when I went back to visit three years later. Fortunately, the friends of the family really loved the message from the Book of Mormon we shared about Jesus Christ and they felt the spirit and were baptized. Well, it's a good thing we do believe in baptism by water and by fire :)
After that, I was in college at BYU and had a flat tire and a fire truck happened to pull into my apartment complex for a false alarm, but decided they were friendly firefighters and that they would change my tire for me. I really appreciated that, but at the same time, was a bit horrified to be seen with the big red. And the last fire story I have for you today is when I was cast as "Seizure Girl" in the sequel to Stephen King's Firestarter movie with Drew Barrymore, where I got to act out this seizure for the horrible sequel which only ever made it to HBO. I did get paid $200 for a few hours of seizing and alka seltzer and for a 16 year old that was legitimate bragging rights, not to mention they let my dad be an extra and run around during the pandaemonium scene where these possessed kids with crazy powers were causing all kinds of trouble for people like me. But today, it was only me causing trouble for me.
I guess these blogs are good for something because last time I posted when I had the cold, my angel of a friend brought over sick person food for me and bottled water, which was THE nicest thing IN THE WORLD and really made me realize the importance of doing the little nice things for people and would not have happened if I had just wrote that in my private journal. So, should I expect a fire extinguisher this time? Anybody?
On a new note, during yoga today, which turned out to be pilates because the instructor never showed so this pilates instructor who came for a yoga class, stepped in and led a class, I stood up and got light headed. That is the strangest place to be in, where everything is black and you're dizzy and you know you're out of it, but you can't do anything about it and then you go to that place, that dizzy place that is so bizarre. Maybe people that do drugs go to places like that when they're high, but as one who has never experimented with the likes of any mind-altering substance, starting to black out is the only place I know where you're physically removed from the present. Bizarre.
Looks like the gas guy is here! Perhaps I will get to leave my house eventually today after all :)
No comments:
Post a Comment