What are you smoking?

I am starting to “wonder” about my readers. Yes, you. The last blog I wrote was F-U-N!!! I even laughed a time or two while typing it. The thing that makes me wonder about “you” is the fact that by the time each one of you got done reading it, you had forgotten the question from the first paragraph!!! It's true! Not one of you has mentioned anything about it.

Soooooo.................cat's out of the bag now. The very first question read:

“I don't even know if I can tell you this whole story and get all the details in! I will give it the old school try though. Fasten your seat belt...this one just may knock you down!! TRUE OR FALSE???”

It's there folks. It was there the first time you read it and it is still there now. Oh how I love giving you a hard time! But don't worry...I have no doubt that if I was in your seat, I would have done the exact same thing you did! Get so involved in the story that you completely forgot.

My husband likes to say that “the story was so good they didn't care about the true or false.” Maybe he's right but I'm not putting any money down on it. After all, he DID marry, right?? How right can he possibly be??? Soooo..............true or false?

Of course it isn't true! Do you really think that would happen to me??? Ha, you know me well! It definitely did not happen that way. Matter of fact, the story was only correct up until the “I took the cleaning bucket out to the car...........” I, in fact, did not take the cleaning bucket out to the car. Quintin did! So from there, the story took it's own turn and I rolled with the punches. BUT, the story did play out in my head while I did the dishes, if it counts for anything.

Seems like I need to throw a good, old-fashioned tall tale in, once in a while, huh??? Ok, I promise!  Now.....that being said.....you are going to possibly think this next story is made up as well. I assure you it happened and here are all the details......BUT FIRST, a little history in case you didn't know. Our home has been victim of two fires in it's history. Not while we lived here, of course. Of course.

As I was doing dishes.....again.....I sure do a lot of dishes, don't I??? Anyway, as I was doing dishes, I came across a cast iron pot. It was very dirty and rusty from sitting in Grandma and Grandpa B's basement for many, many years. I know that when you get NEW cast iron, you have to season it. But this wasn't new as far as I knew. And I'm sure it had been used many, many times. Just not for a whole lot of years!!

I say to my husband, “how am I suppose to clean this up so I don't ruin it?” Well, right or wrong, this is what he told me: Wash it like you normally would but use steel wool on it instead of your dishcloth. So I did. I scrubbed 'er up pretty darn good and dried it off good. What you are about to read next, are the chain of events that followed:

I put some “lard” in the bottom of the pan. Enough to cover the bottom. I then told Quintin that since he was going to be standing there (waiting for his ride to pick him up), he could just do it and I would finish the dishes. He assured me that it was going to stink before it was done but I knew I could handle it.

As he is trying to “burn” the grease in the pan, he decides to put a lid on the pot. Not any lid that may have come with it (none did), but the glass lids that go on our everyday pots and pans. Well, let me tell you this.....putting that lid on it pissed it off in many ways.

I got done with the dishes and cleaning up the counter and start to walk out of the room when I look over to the stove as he lifts the lid off of the pot. What happens when you put a lid on something like that??? Yep, water forms from the steam. So...........as soon as he lifted that lid up, water dripped into the pot and a small fire ensued in the pot.

All I could do for several seconds was just stand there and imagine my white curtains.....directly behind the stove.....going up in flames. I mean, I literally stood there and envisioned it. My very next thought was the glass from the lid was going to explode and I didn't want to be in there when that happened. THEN, I saw our homeowner's insurance start rising with each flicker. “YOU'RE GOING TO CATCH MY CURTAINS ON FIRE!!! MOVE THEM!!!” Yes, I said it in bold AND in red!  At this point, I am trusting my husband and believing he knew what the hell he was doing. He moved the curtains out of the way and continued to play around with that lid. On and off. On and off.

And then the smoke gathered above us. It was black and it was heavy and it was ugly. I opened up the back door and the dogs started to come in and took a big whiff of that smell and high-tailed it right back out to the pen. I turned on the kitchen ceiling fan and then ran to the livingroom to turn that ceiling fan on, as well. I start opening all the windows in the livingroom because the smoke is getting heavy in EVERY room now. Across the house, open the bathroom window.

At this point, all I could think about is work. AND the fact that I had just posted a link on my Facebook THAT DAY telling people NOT. TO. BURN!!! Grrrrrrr!!! Dry conditions and high winds. I had visions of black smoke rolling from my home and fire departments in my yard. Trampling my lilac bush and ruining my burning bushes.

I am running around with my shirt over my nose and breathing through my mouth because the smell is horrific. All of a sudden, my mouth was completely filled with smoke. I couldn't breath at all. I told Quintin to get out of the house NOW and headed for the front door. The dogs kept trying to come in but they didn't ever get past the threshold before turning around and going back to the end of the pen.

I am amazed I made it outside and wished my inhaler was in my pocket then. But no...it was in the house. With everything else. I ran around the house one way, Q the other way, making sure no smoke was rolling out. All I needed was someone calling the fire department on me. Oh I would never live that down!!!

I did, however, have my phone in my pocket this time. Just in case work called to ask if I had decided to burn my property up that day. “Oh my god I bet the upstairs is filled!” I run back in and up the stairs...shirt over my nose....into our bedroom, and the smoke was thicker than ever. You would think there really WAS a fire in there, for all the smoke. I got the window open and a fan in the window to help suck the air out and then went to the bathroom and opened that window up.

Did my husband warn me about all of this??? I think #1: someone didn't know what the hell they were doing and #2: someone didn't do something right. Someone meaning him, not me. Unless you want to count the whole “why don't you just do it” comment that I made to him at the beginning. No, me either.

While I am upstairs with my head in the fan, so I can make it back downstairs, I see Q come outside with the hot pot in his hands (yes, he had potholders). Again...the vision...him just pouring it out and it catches fire and here comes the fire department. I am going to be pissed if something happens to my plants, bushes, and/or flowers!!! “DON'T POUR THAT OUT!” He turns and looks at me and pours it out. Right in front of his truck. Then says, “Why?”

I never said he was the brightest crayon in the box folks. I just said I love him. And, if it catches fire now...it's his truck that burns up. Luckily that didn't happen. I'm surprised it didn't, but it didn't. And there wasn't much for him to pour out. Because the rest of it had magically turned to black smoke that I was inhaling like coalminer's dust.

So, Q got the pot clean. Matter of fact, it looks brand spanking new. It's beautiful. And it probably will never get used for anything. Just because! It has been 24 hours and my house still smells putrid. Just a different putrid than the day before.

Maybe I should be a volunteer firefighter. I now have a lot of respect for those guys and gals that risk their life, going into burning buildings, not knowing what they are facing. Hell, I knew what I was facing and still about fell over from lack of oxygen. I know, I know...I should have crawled. Smoke rises. But I also realize why people don't do that.....crawl around during a fire...because you are so involved in the thought of saving yourself, your family, your pets, your belongings...that you don't think about it.

I don't know if I will ever forget that feeling of “Oh no, I can't breathe,” ever. It's scary. I wondered where I was going to get the oxygen to tell Q to get out. I don't know where it came from. All I know is I found it.

I laugh about it now and tell people that my husband tried to kill me. It's funny now. Of course, in hindsight I should have just hit him over the head with the cast iron pot and continued on with my house cleaning and not done anything. Of course I should have.

Until next time...I hope you enjoyed this tale. It really happened. Just like that. Thanks for reading!