So... Brian, Kerbey, and I woke up to some awesome 35 degree weather this morning. We were SUPER thrilled because that meant we got to use all of the fire-making supplies that we bought last week! yayyyy! I love cozy little fires when it's cold outside! So Brian gets the fire all prepared to be lit and makes sure the flue is open, because our smoke detectors go off when I boil water (SO annoying!) Well... the little flue switch isn't labelled so we can't tell when it's open or closed. We figure if smoke starts billowing into our living room then we should PROBABLY flip the switch the other way. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Let's just try it. So...we did just that!
A few minutes later our whole place is FILLED with smoke, and the shrill, EAR-PIERCING screech of BOTH smoke detectors is threatening to deafen our whole building. Brian is flipping the switch back and forth trying to figure why the heck it won't work, I'm standing on a chair frantically waving a towel and pillow by the smoke detector to get it to SHUT UP before my eardrums explode, Kerbey has freaked out and is cowering under the chair, Brian and I take turns sprinting to the sink to fill a bucket and douse the fireplace until it has completely flooded over, and Brian and I are suffering from burning eyes/nose and are near the point of suffocating. Not to mention I was worried that the neighbors were going to freak out and that the fire department would be storming through our door at any moment. Well...Brian finally just ripped the smoke alarms out of the ceiling and after a few minutes with all the doors open, the smoke started to dissipate.
We proceeded to rant about how retarded it was that the flue was disfunctional. We made plans to go ranting and raving to the office about how they needed to come fix the flue and make them feel guilty for ruining our morning. Brian went over to dry up some of the water from the fireplace and he goes, "uh... whoops..." So um.... he found the REAL flue switch. We were totally flipping the wrong little metal thingy. So... yeah... "whoops" :) It's not OUR fault the flue switch is tucked away so that you can't even see it!! How much sense does THAT make!? LABELS, people!!! A simple label could have saved us a LOT of trouble this cold, December morning! Oh well... good story to tell right? And definitely made for some good laughs and a humbling moment :) We enjoyed a fire anyway... and Kerbey FINALLY stopped trembling with fear about an hour later.
Moral of the story:
ALWAYS disarm your smoke alarm before building your first fire of the winter. OR...you could always just label your flue switch!
HAPPY WINTER!!!
2 comments:
haha... i laughed out loud when I read this one... Sounds like a pretty common mistake. Thanks for the warning. Also, good to hear there are people out there that appreciate the great city of St. Louis like I do. :) Come and visit the glorious arch anytime you'd like!
not to brag or anything but I'm proud of you story telling skills...reminds me of my ooc blogs...and THERE SHOULD ALWAYS be a moral...good job Rox...i like your style:) funny story by the way..hahahahah
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