Burning Down The House

and other things...

Published on September 14, 2005 By crimson In Blogging

I stupidly left a pot of potatoes on the stove, and then went to bed...

No fear, all is well, and there is no structural damage.

Actually, the way it all went down is weird. I had been sleeping hard, when all of a sudden, I just sat up in bed, with this one half-thought screaming in my head: holy shit, the potatoes!

So I ran into the kitchen and the potatoes had just begun to burn. Probably not even a full minute. I burnt the hell out of the bottom of the pot, but the potatoes were barely scorched.

The freaky thing about it all is this: I was completely and totally asleep. I'm surprised that I woke up at all, and while I'm no fatalist, I certainly can see how this all 'should' have ended up. Due to a series of unfortunate events, our home is woefully unprotected. A short list, anyone?

I have no house insurance at the moment. I'm due to hand in the papers on Friday, but that's the earliest that I can get it all done.

The battery is out on the fire alarm. I heard it peel off it's low battery signal last night, only several hours before the potato incident, and did not have a spare 9 volt. I've got thousands of AAs, but no 9Vs at all. I have no car, and the nearest store closed 1/2 hr before I heard it.

Due to the sudden heat wave, all our windows have been tightly closed and the air conditioner left on at night.

I had gone to bed with Kole, and had woken up not even 1/2 hr later, simply because she was sticking to me. I decided then that it would be a good time to pre-cook the potatoes. I had a busy day planned, and figured that this would save some time. However, after turning on the stove, I sat in front of the computer playing poker for a bit, and decided to call it a night, completely forgetting about the spuds. I must have fallen back asleep the moment I hit the pillow.

From the above list, it's easy to picture the alternate scenario to what had actually happened:

Because the alarm wasn't working correctly, the pot of potatoes could have continued to scorch, filling the house with thick, toxic smoke. We probably would have suffocated from the smoke and died before the flames burnt us to bits. I, involuntarily, could have been responsible for two other families deaths as the alarm wasn't working properly.

Had we not died, but the apartment was destroyed, without the insurance, I could have had my ass sued. By everyone in the building, by my housing authority, by the fire department itself, if someone was injured while on the job. That one dead battery that went out not even a full 2 hours previous would have stamped the ticket, for certain.

Timeframe:
10:30 fire alarm low-battery signal. Too late to go to the store, no spare battery.
11:15 in bed, asleep with Kole.
11:45 wake up, hot, sweaty. Decide to get up. Put potatoes on while playing computer game.
12:00 Go back to bed.
12:30ish. Sudden awakening.
Now: feeling like an idiot, but feeling grateful for what actually happened, instead of what could have been.

And yes, top on the list of things to do, is buy another 9 volt and see if I can speed up the insurance process a bit faster than Friday.

Comments

foreverserenity

on Sep 14, 2005

Wow. You lucky person! Someone is watching over you for sure.

That happened to my hubby with a pot of something he was cooking (so long ago I forgot). When he woke up the smoke was billowing out and spreading all over. Our smoke alarm was working, that woke him up!

crimson

on Sep 14, 2005

buy TWO so you always have a spare

hehehe... the funny thing is, I knew that I had a second one, and then later remembered letting my mother have it for the spare monitor.

That happened to my hubby with a pot of something he was cooking

This isn't the first time, I've left something burning....

drmiler

on Sep 14, 2005

I usually end up doing it to a pot of water. (Finally looking in the pot and saying "what water"?) As my wife yells at me for ruining another pot.

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