I left the oven on a few nights ago. Didn’t mean to, but it happens when your brain has gone down the crapper the way mine has. I’m forgetting everything these days. I chalk it up to being too daggum busy….. and that would be the end of that….but the alarmed look I get from old friends is too damn entertaining. I’m starting to enjoy appearing feeble-minded to people. I get all sorts of passes for it.
But sometimes, SOMETIMES, the result of my absent-mindedness is not so funny.
We were rudely awakened by our smoke and carbon monoxide detectors early Sunday morning…..like way, way, WAY too early. We’re not talking the crack of dawn, but, rather, to be crude, the butt-crack of dawn. And the alarm is a none-too-sexy woman’s voice calling out “Warning! Carbon Monoxide! Warning! Carbon Monoxide!”
I bolted up, My Captain slowly sat up, and we could hear Varmint from her bedroom yelling, “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“I’m coming!” I called out and rushed to her. She was already grabbing sleepy-eyed Critter from his bed and pulling him to the deck outside.
“TROY!” I yelled up to My Captain!
“Mumble mumble mumble” was all I heard as he slowly meandered down the stairs. He wasn’t even TRYING, I tell you! It’s so hard to have an emergency with someone who DOES emergencies for a living.
I had whooshed open all the doors, turned on the oven fan, realized the oven was on, and turned it off, then made a bee-line for the deck, and all the while hearing “Warning! Carbon Monoxide!” over and over and over again.
My Captain eventually got outside on the deck with us. I made a wisecrack about ‘why didn’t he go ahead, take his sweet time, and make us coffee while he was in there?’, which earned me an eye-roll.
“The detectors go off at 35 parts per million. You’ve got plenty of time before you’re in danger,” he yawned as he plopped down on one of the chaise lounges.
Varmint, well and truly upset, was mothering Critter, and praising him for coming outside right away.
“But that is what the alarm was telling us to do.” he said, rather matter of factly.
The alarm had stopped at that point, and we looked at each other quizzically. “What do you mean, love?”
“She kept saying, ‘Warning! Go On Outside! Warning! Go On Outside!”
Dagummit, he’s right. Carbon Monoxide does rather sound like ‘Go On Outside’ if you’re sleepy and slightly Oxygen deprived.
The story ends well. No one was hurt. The alarms did their job. Varmint survived the drama surge. I survived Varmint’s survival of the drama surge. And Critter, in his inimitable way, has once again shown us a different perspective of the world.
And I doubt that I’ll forget to turn the oven off ever again.
Now if I could just find my dagnab car keys.
And my reading glasses.
And did I already take my medicine today?
Mama Boe 