Fire Marshall

We did not play with matches growing up. We did not go camping and start a fire with two sticks. We never set the house on fire while cooking on the stove. Our mom may have done the stove thing once or twice, but the eight boys, we were fine. Fire was never an issue for any of us. Still, somehow, my sister became paranoid about fire. I don’t know how or why, but she is a fire guru. She is the official Fire Marshall of the family.

She is the type that has smoke alarms for her smoke alarms. She has escape routes mapped out I am sure, and knows the fire companies phone number by heart. She has a 1-year-old daughter who will know how to Stop, Drop, and Roll, before she will know how to walk. My sister makes Smokey The Bear look like a Pyromaniac. She gave us all our own fire safety kits as house-warming gifts. She really has issues with fire.

This weekend, my kit paid off. We are having work done on the house, and the guys left a propane heater on. This was on to help speed up the drying process of the joint compound (spackle). We were out most of the day, and when we returned we just went about our business. About an hour or so later our carbon monoxide detector started going off. I went out to the addition and noticed this thing was on, so I turned it off, and opened all of the windows. Everything was fine. But what if I did not have the carbon monoxide detector? Would my entire house have filled up, and none of us known. Could we have gone to bed, and never have woken up? I don’t know how much of that gas it takes to kill someone, but I know it does kill you. So my sister basically could have saved our lives with that thing, so, thanks sis. I still have not found a use for the Fire Retardant Jump suit you gave me, but I’ll keep it around.