We had a bit of excitement at the ol’ Tenor Dad place last evening. My wife got home from work, just as the rest of us were arriving home from seeing the doctor about Edward’s new ear infection, and she used her powerful nose-like abilities to detect that there was a gas smell in our house. Not the normal kind of gas smell that is generally in our house after eating Five Guys too many days in row, but a far more dangerous kind.
Now, if you don’t already know this about me, I pretty much don’t have a sense of smell. It’s true that I had noticed a faint oddness of odor emanating from the bathroom earlier that day, but honestly, if there is a weird smell coming from the bathroom, I generally just walk away and wait for it to dissipate. But as soon as my wife walked in the door, she said that it smelled like gas. A lot of gas. And upstairs was almost unbearable to be in. Especially the bathroom, which I guess was like 95% gas and 5% air, which is why I was able to detect a faint hint of a smell.
Windows: open! Doors: open! Sweaters: on! Snow: storm! Gas fellow: called! We did all that we could do, and when the fellow from the gas company finally arrived, half an hour later, he told us that we had a leaking gas pipe in our bathroom wall. This was great news, because it meant that I had not actually caused this latest disaster, which is the standard reason for disasters in my house. On the other hand, it was also bad news, because it meant that they had to turn our gas off until we could get a plumber in to fix the problem.
Things that run on gas in my house include the heat, I think the hot water, and possibly more things that I do not know about yet. Fortunately for us, spring is just around the corner, for many states in the U.S that are not located in Vermont. Unfortunately for us, the state we live in happens to be located entirely in the state of Vermont. So it started getting cold fast. I suppose having all the doors and windows open did not help either.
Well, my wife and I decided that we could probably brave the cold, but the children maybe should not have to, so we shipped them off to Nini’s house for the night and prayed that the plumber would come soon. Supposedly he (or she, I suppose. Plumbers, like Pirates, may often be male, but not exclusively) will be here sometime today. And until then I will be here, huddled under my laptop for warmth, doing nose exercises to improve my sense of smell.
It’s a good thing that you got someone to check on the source of the gas leak as soon as possible. Inhalation of gas does have a lot of health hazards so it was a good call to open doors and windows despite the cold, as well as sending your kids to stay elsewhere. I hope that the repairs fixed everything up and you won’t need to go through something like this again anytime soon.