A Cautionary Tale.

I nearly killed us recently. I've been too embarrassed to tell anyone or talk about it with anyone except my husband, who was there. My guilt prevented me from talking about this, but the hard lesson learned is worth sharing.

I got ready for bed one night around midnight, after drinking and smoking cigarettes. I emptied the ashtrays in the garbage can, per usual, put the glass in the kitchen and went to bed. Fell dead asleep. (That is a euphemism, but more apt than I'd like.)

At 3am I woke up hearing a sharp piercing sound coming from the hallway. We'd just replaced the batteries in the smoke detector in my room and I thought, in my haze of sleep, that, oh, gosh, we should have replaced all the detectors' batteries. No! Seconds later, the smoke detector in my room went off. Okay! I finally got up. The house was full of smoke. Hard to see. I didn't turn on any lights, I didn't need to and I was still worried about waking up my husband. I got to the kitchen and saw flames coming up from our garbage can left of underneath the sink. I saw flames. I then called for my husband, but he didn't hear me. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with water 2 or 3 times and doused the flames in the garbage can. The fire was out. The smoke was worse than before. The garbage can was melted beyond use.

The garbage can had melted. The entire house smelled of smoke. The entire house was filled with smoke.

I opened the front door, and woke my dear (confused) husband. As I opened windows and doors the alarms went silent. He and I then went through the house checking everything, and realized, much to my chagrin, that I had thrown out a cigarette still smoking. He admitted to putting newspapers in the trash... a confluence of circumstance. (We always put newspapers in the "blue bin.") But, clearly, my fault. My Fault!

We were okay. It took us until today to get the smoke smell out of the house. We've washed the floors, sanitized the room and today, washed the curtains. There is a point.

Without the smoke detectors both of us would have slept through the incident. Both of us could have died. (He and I have not talked about that. We have talked about losing the house... hmm.)

I never put much stock in smoke detectors before. Clearly, I've just been stupid. I have to say, the complete complement of detectors saved our lives.

Take note.

A cautionary tale.