The Night of Smells

Last night I wasn’t feeling so good, so we kind of laid low at the house.   Chris was really sweet and let me wallow around in my pajamas at 5:30 PM on a Friday without saying one sarcastic comment.   That takes a special kind of guy to show that restraint.   Later in the night, we decided since there was a chill in the air (autum is coming!   yay!) we should test out our gas fireplace in our new house.

I went upstairs to take a shower while Chris got the fire going, and when I stepped out I thought I would pass. out. Our entire house smelled like natural gas (not THAT kind of natural gas – the kind that runs your stove!!).   It smelled like we were standing in a furnace.   I go downstairs and there is the smallest little fire “roaring” in the fireplace.   Meanwile, gas is filling our entire house.

At this point, Chris is royally pissed off.   The gas fireplace was almost a dealbreaker for him when we bought the house in the first place (“It’s just not natural!”), but a non-functioning gas fireplace?   Lets just say he was quite irritated.   So, he shuts off the fireplace and we decide to watch TV instead.   Only, I can’t concentrate on the TV because I’m so worried about inhaling toxic gas fumes that I end up sitting with my face pressed up against the window screen, gasping for fresh air.   I was also worried about my little dog, Lucy, because she’s got a small head and I figure it probably wouldn’t take too many good inhales for her little, bitty brain cells to vaporize so I grab her too and shove her face out the window.   I looked around for my big, dopey dog Molly, but she was standing with her head INSIDE the fireplace, purposefully inhaling the last of the gas fumes from their natural source.   I figured her brain cells were a lost cause, so I let her keep standing there.

By the time we went to bed, I was so paranoid about the smell that I was breathing through a Kleenex (I don’t really know why, but I felt it was something I’d seen on TV before…) and Chris was so pissed off that he wasn’t even speaking.   So, we get into bed.   And I can’t sleep.   Cause I’m so afraid we are all going to die in our sleep of gas poisoning.   All night I woke up every hour to make sure we were all still alive.

Around 3:00 AM, the smell changed.   When I woke up this time, it smelled more…herbal.   Like burning herbs.   Like a certain ILLEGAL burning herb, if you know what I mean.   I immediately sat up in bed.   “Is someone smoking MARIJUANA?!?!” I thought.   So I got up and started poking around the house, sniffing everything.   I was like a terrier in a port-a-potty.   “Is someone smoking MARIJUANA in our HOUSE?!?!”   After a thorough investigation of our house, I discovered that no one was in fact smoking marijuana in our house.   So I started sniffing around outside.   “Are our NEIGHBORS smoking MARIJUANA?!?!”   I know how these things happen.   I watch Weeds.

In the end, no one was smoking anything inside or outside of our house, and I eventually came back to bed.   I have determined that the aftersmell of a natural gas leak smells surprisingly like many college house parties (not that I know what college house parties are like, Mom…).

So, my helpful hint for married life today:   Natural gas smells awful, and once that potent smell has passed you will smell burning…herbs.   Do not worry, as I did, that someone had broken in your house so they could sit on your couch and smoke a joint.   Apparently that doesn’t happen.