It happens. Shit, that is. And lord have mercy – it hits at the strangest times.
Like when you’re working on your bills and receipts, which is already harrowing enough, and you’re so danged focused that you don’t quite notice that odd smell, and then you lean your head back to stretch out your tense neck muscles and that’s when you see it. Smoke. At least a foot of it, at your ceiling. And you yell, “Holy shit!” because that’s how you do, and then you run to the washing machine. Yes – the washing machine – the thing that requires water to function correctly. And you quickly decipher that it may in fact be on fire. So you cut the power and as soon as you’re sure your house isn’t gonna burn down, you frantically try to clear the smoke from your home. Because, smoke, you know, stinks. (I’ve even heard tell it’s bad for the old lungs.) So you’re doing all you can on that front by yourself, because no matter how loudly you yell for your Mister, that guy just isn’t coming to help. (This is due entirely to the fact that he isn’t home, by the way.) And you finally get the danged smoke cleared – mostly – and then you assess the damage. The washer is truly dead. And your clothes, that last load of laundry for the week, is totally funkified from the smoke. And you start figuring out what your next steps will be.
And then you realize how very good it is that it all happened while you were home and could take care of it. The house did not burn down. The smoke is gone. Everything’s gonna be okay.
Lord have mercy…