Eh bien... C'était excitant ! *

 

So...There I was...** Waiting for breakfast to be served at our normal Sunday, post-Mass eating place.  Sipping a very nice coffee, people watching (Tourists being touristy is always fun to watch) and just generally chilling.  Mrs J notices that she's got a missed call on her phone from 7:26 that morning.  Well, at 7:26, we were sitting in the pew at Church waiting for the opening processional.  The phones were in the car.

She looks at the caller ID and it's the folks staying in our guest house.  Mrs J thinks they want to report sighting a scorpion or some other pest.

No, Beans, telling some people that scorpions are insects and they also live in the country and that unlike a certain 007 Movie one does not die instantly after being stung, is usually a waste of oxygen.

But, since the potential for a verbal feces fit is high, she elects to go outside to call them back.

I am pondering things when I spot this sign for sale behind the bar.  Truer words don't exist on this earth.

I chuckle a bit and get back to my normal Sunday task at hand. 

"What the heck am I going to write about today?"

Got nothin.  Not even a glimmer of a subject.

The waitress comes by and asks if I want more coffee.

Lord knows I need some more caffeine to fire up the cranial neurons. But the problem(s) are going to be resolved in an extremely short time.

After a bit, Mrs J walks back to the table.  She appears to be a bit disconcerted.

"What's up?"

"We just had a fire at the guest house."

I start to stand up and head for the door.

"Not so fast, they got it out, and other than it being very smoky in the house, everything seems to be ok."

I sit back down and reach for the water glass.  With my current heart rate, caffeine is the LAST thing I need.

So, I ask what happened.

"Well, the husband woke early and went to fix his wife some Tea.  It's still pretty dark and he sees a tea pot in one of the cabinets.  He puts it on the stove and turns on the electric burner.  He then takes the dog outside and stands on the porch enjoying the view.  After a few minutes, he senses something "Hot" in the house, so steps back in.  The tea pot is on fire and the flames are about a foot high."

I think to myself "Wait, what?"  

Before I could get that out, she continues, "He found the fire extinguisher and put the fire out."

"Oh...OK. Any Damage?"

She says "Well, I suspect the burner is done for and so is the teapot."

I say "I didn't realize we had a teapot there."

(Money line coming)

"It WAS electric."

So, we finish our breakfast.  

It's actually quite difficult to eat Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs when you bust out laughing every few seconds.  Part of me is laughing at the humor, part is laughing in relief.

We went to Wally World and bought another fire extinguisher because we knew the one we had was  one use and then headed home.  Changed clothes because we knew there was going to be a "Cleanup on Aisle 3" situation and headed down to the guest house.

Their Beagle greeted us at the gate with a friendly tail wag.  (Obviously trying to smooth things over with us.  It was successful.)

The wife comes out and introduces herself  (I think her name is "Imsosorry" as she repeated it several times.)

We walk in to the house, and there is obvious smoke smell, but other than the teapot and the expected burner, no real damage.  The husband was in the shower, cleaning the fire extinguisher residue off.  A few minutes later he comes out a little nervously.  I think his name was Imsosorry also, or maybe it's their last name.  

"No worries, no blood, no foul.  I'm just glad you kept your wits about you and used the fire extinguisher."

We talked for a while and learned a few things that we thought we were prepared for but things didn't go quite as planned.

We had placed the fire extinguisher right next to the stove as that is the primary source of ignition in the cabin.  Unfortunately, our cleaning crew had moved it into one of the cabinets and we had missed its absence.  By the time you read this, we will have contacted their supervisor and relayed this story.  We also realized based on our guest's story, that right beside the stove wasn't a good place either as he would have had to go very close to the flames to get it.  We set the replacement in a new location in plain sight but out of the way of traffic and away from probable sources of flame.

Additionally, he said we needed a smoke detector, I pointed at the one on the wall.  He said, "It didn't go off".  Well...Crap! I had tested it the week before last and replaced the battery.  In any case, we now have a new smoke detector, which tests good.  Not sure what happened to the prior one, it was only 3 years old.  (10 year warranty notwithstanding.)

We chatted a bit and I learned something I didn't know.  He said when he started using the extinguisher, for the first couple of seconds, the flames got considerably higher before dying out.  I later looked at that extinguisher and in the small print, it said that was a common occurrence.  

WhodaThunk?

So, I'm checking out at Lowes and the check out clerk asks "Fire?" as he scans the smoke alarm, burner and burner pan.  I acknowledge the fact.  He continues and says "Well, the fact that it's you that's fixing it is good news."

Yes, yes it is.

Oh, and Mrs J insisted we get a "regular" teapot while we were at Wally World.

* Sarge decided it's French week at the Chant. C'est le patron

**Norme de mise en garde juvat