Vacation Diary Day #1 "Called 911"

[Karyn J. Powers]

We are both okay. The house is fine. Around 6 PM, I went out on the front porch and lit the grill to cook some turkey burgers. Pat brought the burgers out and we chatted. Suddenly flames started shooting out where the hose connected to the propane tank nozzle. While Pat was getting the fire extinguisher, I burned three fingers trying to turn off the gas through the flames.

We couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work, so I dragged the unit down four steps to the edge of the side walk to get it way from the house. I ran back into the house and called 911. Pat got a pot of water and threw it on the fire. He told me the fire was out so we didn't need 911 assistance, but the dispatcher wanted the fire fighters to check the scene anyway, So they came out with a nice big fire truck, but no siren, and Pat disappeared into the basement.

I met the fire men who inspected the unit and declared it nonfunctioning until the connector hose is replaced. They also told me it is against city ordinance to operate a gas grill on a porch, but they said no ticket, just a warning. They wished us good luck with our vacation and went on their merry way.

I came back into the house hyped up on adrenaline and angry because Pat left me to face the music alone. He said he went into the basement to fold clothes because it was better than yelling at me for calling 911 even after the fire was out.

We were both a little stressed.

Tomorrow we fly to Sin City. The main reason we're going is to watch the WI and UNLV football teams get heat exhaustion along with 40,000 other WI fans. We also have front row tickets to Jay Leno for tomorrow night. Saturday noon, we meet some of the 30 friends we're traveling with to draft our fantasy football league teams, (better late than never); and Saturday night is the game. Sunday we're watching the Packers game in the sports book at the Excalibur Casino and Monday we come home.

So we will do all of those fun things, but we don't have to gamble now. We just won the "our-propane-tank-didn't-explode-and-blow up-the-house" lottery.

I can't wait to see what day #2 of our vacation brings.

Karyn

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