When I heard the story later that day, my grandmother got really upset, NOT BECAUSE HER HOUSE HAD ALMOST BURNED TO THE GROUND but because of the HUMILIATION she suffered at having the fire and police department in front of her house. EVERYBODY SAW! She said she'd never been so embarrassed in her whole life! um....okay.
I remember thinking how absurd that was. How ungrateful she was and how she should consider herself lucky that she wasn't sitting on a pile of burned house and destroyed possessions.
Flash forward 10 years later. Last night. My house.
At 11pm, everyone was in bed except me. I was turning off the xmas lights, locking the doors and had just settled in for a good read when my fire alarms started going off. I was annoyed. I walked the entire house, smelling for smoke, feeling for heat and looking for flames and there was nothing. I reset the alarm and went back to my book. 10 minutes later they went off again. TICKED OFF! This, of course, brought the kids, which ticked me off even more and I reset the alarms and told them to go back to bed. Of course, they were wired and sleep was not even an option for them so they all settled into my clean kitchen (it only stays clean between the hours of 10pm and 6am) and started to mess it up again, making toast. I was walking around looking for batteries so I could switch out my alarms and see if that was the problem. That's when the alarms went off again.
This got Peter out of bed. I sent him to 7-11 for batteries and the alarms went off 3 times before he got back. We changed the batteries and the alarms sounded repeatedly for the next 10 minutes. Now I was starting to think that maybe something was wrong. I called dispatch. I really really didn't want to. They told me, no problem. They would send out A GUY to just check things out and make sure everything was okay. Within 5 minutes I had 25 volunteer firefighters all driving their own pickup trucks, the cities largest fire engine, the sheriff and the ambulance at my house.
Now tell me that ridiculousness is not bred into me because my thought was not relief that everything was gonna be ok now or even fear that maybe this was a big deal. All I could think was "OMG! Every neighbor for two miles is watching us right now!" And I was mad! And I was embarrassed! I was channeling my lovely grandmother and she's not even dead.
I sent Peter and the kids to the neighbors across the street cuz they were in their p.j's and it was 5 degrees outside and I sat on the front porch with the dogs and watched the circus unfold.
And guess what?
Not only did I have CO2 leaking into my basement, I also had a natural gas leak. Which means, that after me, Peter, the kids and the dogs passed out from carbon monoxide, the house would have exploded and burned down on top of us.
When I think about how, for a moment, I seriously considered unplugging all the alarms and going to bed, I feel a little bit sick.
Was it overkill to send out the entire Vernal Fire Department, police department and EMTs? Yeah. Probably. Did EVERYBODY within several miles see the mayhem unfold on my front lawn? Yeah. Pretty much. But this morning I woke up with a roof still over my head. My children headed to work and school and they were healthy and safe. My landlord brought me a shiny new water heater to replace the deadly disaster that almost killed us and the sun was shining and I felt good even after being up all night. And instead of being embarrassed, now I just feel grateful...so grateful. There are people out there willing to get out of their beds, in 5 degree weather, RUSH to my house (they got there so fast) and help my family. Even if it had been nothing, they were willing to do it. I also need to give a shout out to the Questar gas man. He's the one who ultimately found the problem and shut the leak down. When he got there he was not happy but he was so kind and so professional and he didn't rush through things and he was just awesome. Questar, give that man a raise. Seriously.
I guess first off, I need to say, if you're alarms go off, there is probably a reason. CO2 is invisible and has NO SMELL. By the time we could've recognized that something was wrong, some or all of us would have been really sick. CO2 could have killed us. Keep your batteries fresh so that you know if those alarms go off, something is WRONG. Don't ignore it. It cost us nothing but a little drama to have the fire department come out and check. In my case, they found something. My home is a new home. It's only 3 years old. It doesn't just happen in older homes. Mine was caused by a faulty water heater.
Second, I need to say Thank You! Thanks to every volunteer fire department in every small town in the country. These guys do not get paid to do what they do. They attend training and meetings all on their dime and their time and from the looks of it, last night everyone one of them came out in the cold to help my family.
And my neighbors, who for a split second I was mortified to play out my little drama in front of, a big big thank you. We were offered food, showers, a place to sleep by more than one family. If this had escalated into something worse, we would have been taken care of.
It's the holidays and things are crazy. I don't have any time to myself these days. Just go go go. But now my focus has shifted. All I really want to do is sit with Peter and the kids and watch a movie. Get a pizza so I don't have to cook and eat dinner at the table on our good plates to make it special. Cuddle with my dogs and just breathe in the goodness that is my life. It's too bad that it takes a close call to put it all in perspective but maybe that's what this was. A message to just stop for a minute and think about what's important. Just be with the people I love the most in this world and just be thankful. It's a good place to be.
