Who knows One? I know One....
First off, and totally unrelated to the topic at hand, I just wanted to say that bassett hounds are like the cutest dogs on earth. I've been thinking that ever since I've been seeing Eeyore's adorable photos of (himself) (his dog) along with his comments lately . Now, my dog is only HALF bassett (.5B). But it's the bassett in him that keeps us enthralled. Far more than the whiney beagle half, I'm sure.
And from that inauspicious prologue, I begin a somber post: I could have died last night. But I didn't! There but for the grace of Adonai go I and my family.
It began with a game of Dodge Ball in my basement.
That game of Dodge Ball caused the heating system to go out, thanks to an inadvertant flip of the switch, itself caused by an errant dodged ball.
That failure of oil-heat caused me to light fires in both of my fireplaces.
The dual fires led my husband to inquire, "What the hell is going on here? And why is it so freakin' cold?"
That question led to a phone call with the oil purveyor, who helped us discern that the heating system had been shut off, and who helped us to shut it back on.
The shutting on of the heating system enabled us to stop adding logs to the fires in the respective fireplaces.
Without additional logs, the fires went out.
Without fire, the fireplaces seemed like cold, vacuum-like spaces.
The cold, vacuum-like spaces called out to us to close their flues so as not to let any more precious heat out into the night air.
The closing of the flues did nothing to release the toxic gases being released by the dying embers.
The toxic gases built up to a level that might have killed my entire family, had we not (THANK YOU GOD) installed carbon monoxide detectors.
The carbon monoxide detectors began to screech out their warnings at 2 a.m. this morning (last night to me).
The screeching sounds woke me up and got me to call 911 and evacuate my family.
And my family survived my city-bumpkin stupidity, the only damage, apparently, being an hour of lost sleep. And some well-deserved humiliation thanks to this being the THIRD time Banksville's Bravest have had to wake their asses up in the middle of the night and come to my rescue (or my alleged rescue, seeing as the first two times were false alarms, and yes, they assess OUR asses fifty bucks a pop or false alarms).
God help me. I don't know if I'm cut out for this country life.
Chad gadya, chad gadya,
YC
18 comments:
okay, i haven't read this because i can't get past the fact that you have a basset hound and yet you can't spell it. come on. basset hound. practice it.
oh, and you can't copy .5J by naming your BASSET .5B. copycat. which you are. so there.
it does look more balanced with two t's.
and that is scary! didn't that happen to vitas gerilitas(?) good thing you had the alarms. a friend's daughter died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heating system in their pool house year before last. she was home for winter break. so very, very sad. i'm happy you're all ok.
eeyore, come on. help me out here.
Even more balanced -- bbassett.
bbaasseett
emporiumbassetorium?
Fireplaces have rules. Did you read the rules book? How about the rules book for dodge ball, it's not supposed to be played in the house.
Glad you didn't die. But you needs to play by the rules books.
Does anyone read those damn manuals? You couldn't pay me to.
Wow, actual wood-burning fireplaces? You really are living the country life now.
Well, it's good you're all ok!! With kids, these kinds of things can be scary.
You silly urban transplant! Wood fires don't generate carbon monoxide. CO is a result of high-pressure combustion, such as occurs in engines, etc.
I'm really excited that eeyore mentioned Vitus Gerulaitis.
i think eeyore had vitus gerrulitus for a long time but he finally took antibiotics.
OH MY GOD, CARL! You are so wrong. Anything that combusts creates CO (that's carbon monoxide, in case you didn't know) in its combustion. Firewood, included. The fire department should know, wouldn't you think?
And Laksmi, that is so not funny. The guy is dead, and his whole family too.
Lauren, we're both partly right and wrong. CO comes from virtually any fire that's hot enough. But your lame smoldering embers were not enough to cause carbon monoxide buildup sufficient to harm you. Your CO detector may actually have sounded because of carbon dioxide.
Why would some firefighters necessarily know better than anyone else about carbon monoxide? The best way to find out about stuff is to go looking for facts on your own. Leave it to other people to know things for you and you'll find yourself prepetually disappointed.
But no matter what, you should leave your damper open!!! Carbon dioxide will snuff you just as easily.
I always say that it's the carbon that'll killya, not the oxide, be it mono- or di-.
i didn't make vittus gerrulitus dead, ya know, so don't go gettin all 'that's not funny, he's dead' on me, because i didn't kill him. wtf, i don't keep up with shit--the name sounds like a disease. relax.
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