Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Early morning profanity

Something I have been meaning to post about but forgot about until this afternoon.

The other night our power went out during the night. I did not wake up until it came back on because our smoke alarm went off. Our smoke alarm is wired into our house power and I think it goes off when the power comes back on to let you know the power was out? All I know is that it was about 1:15am and I sat bolt right up in bed and said, "What the f%@#?!" Thankfully Jay didn't hear it, I guess it must have been said quietly, or maybe I just thought it.

Let me tell you what went through my mind in those milliseconds between sleep and awake brought on by our smoke alarm. As a kid one of my greatest fears was a house fire. We did a lot of fire safety stuff at school and I knew that my parents smoked in bed and I don't think we ever owned a fire extinguisher or anything. I don't think we had an escape plan either. I was scared of fire. In those milliseconds before I realized that it had just been a power outage I managed to think, "Oh no, our house is on fire, but I don't smell any smoke. How am I going to drag Jason over to the garden door in our room? I could probably grab him under the armpits and drag him across the carpet. What about Kiwi? I guess once I drag Jason outside I can break the dining room window to get her." That was a very disturbing moment to me. I was quite convinced for that brief second that our house was on fire and all night and through the next day I just had this dark cloud hanging over my head thinking about it. I think it would be REALLY hard to lose your house and everything in it.

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