So after we had unpacked and been settling in for a few days, going shopping for food and cat junk, that kind of thing, we decided that since the average temperature here was 40 and rainy we were going to have a fire.
That's right. A fire.
Yeah, our new digs has a fireplace. Nothing fancy, it's your typical apartment fireplace. Here, here's a pic:
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| The fireplace, acting innocent. |
Nothing fancy. This pic is actually after our first fire. Here's what it looks like when the fire is actually burning in it:
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| How the fireplace should look, with fire. |
Nice, right? Yeah, that's what it's supposed to look like. What happened that first night wasn't exactly as picturesque as this.
So I get in there and open up the flew (flu? Fliue? whatever...) as far as I can, but I notice this weird little handle off to the left of the fire opening thing. You can't see it in the picture, but after turning and pulling and pushing this thing, I decided that it didn't do anything at all. So I throw a log in, light it up, and sit back and bask in my own glory. Only one problem...
Our apartment in filling up with smoke.
I'm turning the useless handle and nothing is happening. I'm going outside to see if the handle is doing anything out there. Nothing. So we open the windows and doors and figure we'd just wait for it to burn out and then never do this again. Then the smoke alarm starts going off. I run over to pull it down and take the battery out, only when unscrewed from the ceiling it only falls about 2 inches. It's hooked into the building's power, which means I can't just pull out the battery. Figures. So I hit the button and it shuts off. For about 5 minutes. And it keeps going off. Mind you, the fire is only about 20 minutes old at this point, and the box clearly states that these logs have a burn life of something like nine weeks. We start thinking of what we can do to make it all just stop.
I run into the kitchen and grab the biggest pot we have. I figure if we can get the burning log into the pot and get it outside, we can dowse it with water and put it out or something. Problem is, how are we going to get the burning fire log into the pot?
I very, very, very, very, very, very briefly think about filling the pot with water and just dowsing the log while it's in the fireplace. Very, very, very, very, very briefly. Even I'm not that dumb, at least for very long.
You have to remember that we have only been in our new home for something like 2 days. Not really the kind of impression we'd like to give to our new neighbors and landlords. Although, you'll hear/read about one of our neighbors in something like 2.0 or 2.5 or whatever.
So it is with mild trepidation that I do something I have only ever done a handful of times in my life. I called the police.
I have to explain to the nice woman that while my apartment is not on fire and does not appear to want to be on fire, it is currently filling with smoke and probably won't stop on its own for 79 hours or whatever the box said. She says she's sending the fire department and to wait outside for them to arrive.
We were in our pj's and getting ready to watch Paranormal Activity 2. Mind you, it is not easy to get GF to watch horror movies, especially at night. So we're waiting outside in our pj's joking about how people must be looking out their windows and seeing how the new couple has already had to call the fire department. Grr. Anyway, after a few minutes they arrive. I flag them down and explain the whole situation to them.
Did I mention there are about a dozen of these guys pouring out of this truck? Seriously, it's like a freaking clown fire truck or something. They just kept filing out of there.
So they go inside and start doing their thing. I ask one of the stragglers (hereby referred to as "sexy firefighter") if it's okay to follow them in. He gives me a look that says in no uncertain terms "what do I care? do what you want, idiot." So I do. I get inside and one of the other sexy firefighters is on his back in front of the fireplace reaching inside. Don't worry, he's a professional and he's wearing special fire retarded gloves or something superhero-like. Another sexy firefighter is leaning over him asking him "is that it?" to which the upturned turtle sexy firefighter replies "yeah." The third sexy firefighter (the one who was crouching or whatever) looks at us and says "your flu (fliu? flue? Wait, I think it's "flue"! Yay!) wasn't open far enough."
My reply? "Man, now I feel like a dick because I don't even know how to work my own fireplace." His reply was "aw, don't feel like that. It happens all the time," but the pause between my statement and his was long enough to speak volumes, namely "yeah, learn how to use your fireplace before putting fire into it, dick."
They give us a few pointers and are then on their way. I thank them and leave the door open behind them to continue airing out our apartment. The fire continues on just fine, no more smoke pouring in. We've had a fire or two since then with no problems whatsoever. And in retrospect, it's kind of funny that we had to call the fire department on our third day here. Still unclear as to what the little lever on the side is for. I pointed it out to them but they didn't think it was important enough to comment on apparently. And no, we still haven't watched PA2 yet.
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