That one time when I lit my best friend's brand new house on fire
I was very excited to visit Beth a couple of weeks ago in Colorado and see her brand new house. It's a great house in an up and coming neighborhood that is both safe and offers delicious breakfast burritos for $4 and interesting carts full of mango covered with chili (I will definitely be sampling this when I am there for her wedding). The house looks great - the last owner improved it greatly before selling it. Unfortunately one thing he didn't improve was the circuit breaker box. The inspector had told them they would want to replace the circuit breaker box because the company that made it went out of business due to all the lawsuits when the circuit didn't break when it's supposed to. They had planned to replace it as soon as they got the tax rebate, but that changed after the house fire.
Imagine Saturday morning at 4:30 am. Lily wakes up and barfs on the rug (I do like to leave a path of destruction) and wakes me up. Once I'm awake I have to go to the bathroom, so stumble into the bathroom and turn the light on. The light turns on, but there is also this scary buzzing noise. So I turned the light off. Except the buzzing noise didn't stop and then there is a popping noise and then a small fireball comes out of the outlet. This is the outlet next to the medicine chest containing flammable liquids. Also fire! If that doesn't wake you up at 4:30 in the morning, I don't know what will.
The thing is, you also act on instinct at 4:30 in the morning so I just tried to blow the fire out and in two big puffs I had it extinguished. My first thought was that my asthma had improved. My second is that adrenaline might make one huff and puff a lot more than I typically would have.
I yelled for Beth and she and Kris came running to see the fire and make sure the circuits were off, though we were all still slightly convinced that we might burn alive so there wasn't much sleeping the rest of the morning. Thankfully Kris' cousin is an electrician and came over the make sure we wouldn't burn alive before the circuit box was fixed. The box has now been fixed and the wiring checked to make sure it wouldn't start a fire. I was going to jokingly get them a fire extinguisher for their wedding present, but Kris beat me too it. Now I don't get to write "some fires should be squelched" in their card. Dammit.
As I was leaving I told them I was sorry I had started their house on fire, but they just responded that they were glad I'd put it out so quickly. But hopefully I won't have to do it again. Ever.
Imagine Saturday morning at 4:30 am. Lily wakes up and barfs on the rug (I do like to leave a path of destruction) and wakes me up. Once I'm awake I have to go to the bathroom, so stumble into the bathroom and turn the light on. The light turns on, but there is also this scary buzzing noise. So I turned the light off. Except the buzzing noise didn't stop and then there is a popping noise and then a small fireball comes out of the outlet. This is the outlet next to the medicine chest containing flammable liquids. Also fire! If that doesn't wake you up at 4:30 in the morning, I don't know what will.
The thing is, you also act on instinct at 4:30 in the morning so I just tried to blow the fire out and in two big puffs I had it extinguished. My first thought was that my asthma had improved. My second is that adrenaline might make one huff and puff a lot more than I typically would have.
I yelled for Beth and she and Kris came running to see the fire and make sure the circuits were off, though we were all still slightly convinced that we might burn alive so there wasn't much sleeping the rest of the morning. Thankfully Kris' cousin is an electrician and came over the make sure we wouldn't burn alive before the circuit box was fixed. The box has now been fixed and the wiring checked to make sure it wouldn't start a fire. I was going to jokingly get them a fire extinguisher for their wedding present, but Kris beat me too it. Now I don't get to write "some fires should be squelched" in their card. Dammit.
As I was leaving I told them I was sorry I had started their house on fire, but they just responded that they were glad I'd put it out so quickly. But hopefully I won't have to do it again. Ever.
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