At about 10 pm last night an alarm started sounding in our house. It was coming from what I thought was our smoke detector. This same alarm went off on Sunday night when MJ made burgers, but the sound quickly subsided after we opened some windows even though there was no smoke in the house. Turns out the alarm are just sensitive to sudden heat. Bu this time the alarm wouldn’t stop and MJ came upstairs to say that the carbon monoxide warning light was on.

I suddenly remembered turning one of my gas stovetop burners to the low setting, but didn’t remember turning it off. Yep, that was it. MJ turned off the burner (which was still lit) and immediately opened the windows again. Unfortunately the alarms still wouldn’t stop.

MJ called 911 just to make sure we weren’t missing something and they told us to quickly evacuate our house, that they were sending a truck over to check it out.

In a matter of maybe three minutes, all three of us were wide awake in front of the house and scores of police, fire trucks and an ambulance were flashing their lights all up and down our street.
Carbon Monoxide poisoning is no small matter. Small children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable, so you can imagine how completely terrified and stupid I felt. Luckily, we were experiencing no symptoms but the EMTs checked us out anyway just to make sure we were OK.

While this was going on, several firefighters in full gear marched around our house and checked every corner for dangerous CO readings. Again, everything checked out fine.

I’ve never been in an ambulance, nor have I ever had the fire dept visit my house but I have learned that both these things are very humbling. Especially since it was my own fault that they were there. They were all incredibly nice. Aside from our kind neighbors, these guys are the best thing about Maybeery.

Sitting in the back of the Fire Chiefs truck, he took my blood pressure.
“102 over 60. That sound about right to you?”
“Yes.”
Under the circumstances he was very surprised. “You’re probably the calmest person here” he said. Calm under pressure, that’s me. I didn’t bother to tell him that sometime over the next month I will probably sob uncontrollably at a perfectly otherwise dull moment when it soaks in that I nearly killed us all.

Whoever installed these CO detectors in our house – may you live a long and rich life without having to ever want for so much as an ice cream cone on a hot day. Thank you.