Battling the Elements

So far, the Minch family has experienced life in 2010 facing fire, flood, and famine.

Did I mention that I caught on fire in January? Yeah, that was a tremendously scary and surreal moment. It's sort of amusing now, but for a minute there, I must admit I was worried.

It was a Sunday morning, around 11:30. Ed was off running errands and Cameron was still sleeping. I had done some walking on the treadmill, jumped in the shower, and when I was finished, headed downstairs to put some water on for tea. I trotted down the stairs in my favorite terry cloth bath robe, which I have had for many years. It's my go-to robe upon getting out of the shower, drying my hair, styling my hair, and putting on perfume before I dress.

I turned on the gas stove to heat the kettle, and if you have a gas stove, you know that upon lighting them, they always ignite with a "woosh." As I started to walk away from the stove, I noticed that my right sleeve had caught fire. It happened so fast, and to top it off, I wasn't even sure how it happened.

If you've never been on fire, let me tell you, your first reaction really is not to "stop, drop, and roll." Your first reaction is to start flailing the body part as if you're trying to disconnect it from your body. As I flapped my sleeve in the air (which was only feeding the fire), I quickly realized that I needed to stop doing that and smother the sleeve from oxygen. So, like an idiot, I patted the sleeve against my body, because at this point, the fire was manageable. However, as I did this, other parts of the robe also began to ignite, and spread like wildfire. Why it never occurred to me to stick my arm under the sink, I"ll never know. Eventually, I grabbed the kitchen towel and patted myself down. I did think about ripping the robe off my totally naked body and stomping the crap out of it, but being the practical mother I am, I actually thought about which would be more traumatic for Cameron to see. His mother totally in flames, or his mother totally naked. I assumed it would only be a matter of time before he came rushing down into the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about, because I was certainly uttering the phrase "Omigod, omigod, OH MY GOD!" over and over and over.

Fortunately for me, the fire dissipated as quickly as it had started. As I stood there in the kitchen, I looked around at the burnt debris that had fallen on the floor and the smoke rising up to the ceiling. I quickly opened up the doorwall for fresh air to circulate, turned on a fan or two so the smoke alarms wouldn't go off and wake up Cameron (who was still sleeping!), and then headed upstairs to put on a different robe.

As I regained my composure and started to relive the events in my head, I began to examine the robe. There was a definite brown tinge to the surface of the faded black terry cloth. To my surprise, however, not only was it on the sleeve and front of the robe, but it was also on the back! This could only make me think that the back of the robe was on fire as well. As I mentioned, it all happened so fast, which made me think something had to have accelerated the ignition. Then, it dawned on me. My robe was probably covered in remnants of hair spray and perfume, which I always spray on my wrist. I was basically a human Molotov cocktail. When the gas stove was lit, it sprayed out and, as I brushed my sleeve past the stove, that's when it caught fire. Once the chemicals from these items were burned off, the fire went out. Lesson learned. From now on, I am very careful not to have dangling sleeves on when I light my gas stove. They get pulled all the way up to my shoulder. I kid you not.

A few weeks after the fire, we experienced a leaky ice maker/water dispenser valve on the refrigerator in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it wasn't brought to our attention by water pooling on the kitchen floor from under the fridge. For goodness sakes, that would be too easy. We discovered it when I headed down into the basement on a Monday morning to get on the treadmill. As I approached the bottom of the stairs, I heard a strange noise, which I couldn't quite put my finger on. Turns out, the strange noise was water dripping from multiple soaking wet ceiling tiles. When I realized what I was seeing, you can only imagine the look on my face, the words that came out of my mouth, and the speed in which I flew up the stairs screaming Ed's name. Thank God he had not left for work yet.

At first, we didn't know what the hell was happening or where it was coming from. We did have the presence of mind to turn off the electricity in the basement, however, since overhead lights were drenched in water. After running around frantically, checking sinks, and vents, and closed off rooms, we realized that right above that spot was the refrigerator. Sure enough, ran upstairs to pull it away from the wall, and "voila!" The water was leaking inside the fridge, filled up the bottom pan, and then proceed to spill onto the floor but traveled right down the cracks of where the hard wood floor meets the wall. Thus, pooling under the hardwood floor, soaking into the subfloor and then dripping down into the ceiling tiles below. We don't think it had been happening for too long, since Cameron had just been downstairs the night before to empty the garbage.

As we surveyed the damage we realized that it could have been a lot worse. Just a few ceiling tiles. For whatever reason, I had an eerie calm in my demeanor. I reminded myself that I have some friends who are currently going through way worse traumas in life, than this. The loss of a spouse, the painful goodbye to an ill parent, the loss of a job, etc. This little disaster was just a part of life.

So, with our "chin up" attitude, we set about cleaning up the mess. After a couple of days, we began to realize that the worst of the situation was how it was affecting the hardwood floor boards in the kitchen. They began to "cup." The center of the boards were concave while outer edges raised up. This created an uneven surface. After doing some online research, we were encouraged when it said that many times this is a temporary condition of the flooring until all the moisture is removed from the wood. It also offered some suggestions on how to expedite the process.

One suggestion was to turn up your thermostat to 80 degrees, while turning off your humidifier for a period of time. When Ed approached me about whether I would be willing to give it a try, I had mixed emotions. My first thought was how all my cost cutting electric and gas saving measures I applied to the household in January and February were going to go right out the window by jacking up the thermostat to 80 degrees. Then, I was secretly giddy when I realized that I would not have to walk around the house wearing multiple layers of clothing with blankets on top of me while watching T.V. The biggest concern, however, was weather or not I could really stomach being in such a warm house. We keep our thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and dial it down to 60 at night. In the spirit of saving repair work having to be done to the floor, I decided that I could handle it for two or three days. And so it began.

Of course, we were not allowed to turn up the thermostat until Ed was showered, dressed, and out of the house on his way to work. With overactive sweat glands, he would have been a mess. Unfortunately, for me, I really had nothing that had to be accomplished outside of the home, thus, leaving me here to withstand the heat.

At first, it wasn't so bad. If I had short sleeves on and wasn't moving around too much, I was good. However, when I needed to get on the treadmill downstairs, that was a different story. I walked while wearing my iPod and at some point I noticed that the Jordan Sparks/Chris Brown song "No Air" was playing. They sang about not being able to breathe, which started to make me feel like I couldn't breathe. Eventually, I had to open a window to let some fresh air in while I finished my exercise. When I walked up the stairs and opened the door, I was hit with a wall of "heat." It was also quite noticeable whenever I entered the house from outside. When Cameron and Ed came home for the day, they both changed into shorts. That night we dialed down to 60, but I don't think the thermostat ever broke 73 during the night. Ceiling fans were being used to the max.

The next day, things started to change. I found that my use of Vaseline Intensive Lip Therapy increased about 200%. I began to receive enormous shock of electricity when I went to turn on a light. Frankly, I was amazed that my lips did not spontaneously combust due to all the petroleum jelly they were coated in. When Stanley saw me approach to pet his fur, he turned and ran the other way. Later in the day, I noticed that my contacts felt glued to my eyes. Then, as I was standing there drying my hair, my nose started to drip blood. It took me by surprise, and I began to feel like I had been exposed to some toxic chemicals, like Jack Bauer in 24. I also began to worry about Stanley and whether or not he would be okay. Although he seemed to be relishing in the heat, I made sure to put down some additional bowls of water around the house to ensure he drank plenty of liquids. I even let him drink out of my water cup (yes, I got a new one out for me). I started to feel dehydrated and needed to get out of the house.

While I was out and about, Ed called to see how it was going. He asked me "Is it hot in there?" To which I replied "Duh! Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course it's hot in there. It's like Arizona in there! I could be drying my own fruit slices on the counter tops for homemade trail mix if I wanted to."

By the third day, I could take it no more. We continued to leave the humidifier off for a couple of weeks, while blowing a fan directly up into the subfloor from underneath. We have since had to turn the humidifier back on due to serious dry skin patches forming on my face and sinus problems for all.

I am happy to report that the flooring has improved greatly. Whether it will ever return to its normal state, remains to be seen. However, at least the damage has been lessened. Also, our current DTE bill was $70 less than the previous month, in spite of the increased temperatures and round-the-clock fan blowing.

On the famine side, Cameron is thrilled that I'm over my empty-the-pantry-fridge-and-freezer kick. I resumed grocery shopping in mid-February and my SweeTart jelly beans have been available in stores for a couple of weeks now. With all the stress I've been under, I've been popping them like pills.

My biggest concern now is whether or not it's safe to leave my home for a trip to Florida. We've had so many freak occurrences here of biblical proportions, I'm afraid I'll come home to find a house full of locusts.