Gas leak
So, I come home at 12:30 or thereabouts from working at circehelene's, and walk into my apartment. Immediately upon opening the door I cannot help but notice an overpowering odor of gas. Hmm. I think, maybe my boyfriend, the strong and silent one, accidentally knocked the gas on. I flick on the lights (I have since been informed that this was a bad move; if there's a gas leak, it seems that the electric connection caused by doing that could set off an explosion) and find the strong and silent one curled up in bed playing a video game on his phone.
"You smell gas?" I asked. "I smell gas. I smell a serious amount of gas."
"I thought I did earlier," he said. "But then I fell asleep."
I was not reassured by this.
"Call it in," he said.
I called it in. Con Ed told us to open the windows, get out of the apartment, and wait outside for them. When the guys came they scoped out my stove and said nothing was amiss. Hmm, I thought. From what they say, they're pretty much dismissing me as somebody who doesn't know the smell of pot when her boyfriend has smoked it in her apartment (he doesn't do that, because I'm allergic to pot; it makes me queasy to the point of vomiting). But I do know that smell, and as we're chatting in the hallway, one of them remembers smelling something weird as he walked past the place next door. He runs his gas detecting wand-machine along the door jamb of next door, and it clicks like crazy. Meanwhile, I walk back into my place and smell the gas odor really sharply in one particular spot. I called to the other guy to come in and he stands there for a moment and confirms yeah, he smells something strange.
The guy with the machine comes back in my apartment, stands where I stood, and follows his machine's clicks to the air vent in the wall, which connects to the apartment next door.
Where, it turns out, there's a huge-ass gas leak. For real. Before we found that out there's about 15 minutes of pounding hard on the door, me calling the Super, kicking her door, ringing her doorbell, etc., before she wakes up (but she's fully dressed and put together and there was a television on, so I don't know) and begins arguing about letting the Con Ed guys in. Now, I would be as suspicious as any woman would be about opening my door at 1 AM to two guys I don't know, but if they were wearing Con Ed uniforms and carrying clicky machine devices and talking about a gas leak, I don't think I would utter the words "Can't it wait until tomorrow morning?" My issue would be ascertaining that they were for real, not being annoyed that they were inconveniencing me. I might call Con Ed to make sure they had sent some guys to my address. But having done that, I wouldn't argue with them about whether or not they have to look at my gas connections right now.
Once they insisted that indeed, they had to check the gas connections now (for which I was grateful, because I was not going to go to sleep with the smell of gas in my apartment), she said "OK. Give me ten minutes. I'll have to clear a path."
I am a terrible housekeeper. Simply dreadful. I was embarrassed about the state of my apartment. But here's the thing: these are small apartments. I have no idea how she needed ten minutes (more like fifteen, actually), to "clear a path." There's dirty clothing and clean laundry and books and papers and shit all over my place, but...you can get to and from the stove quite easily. Anyway, they go in and ascertain that indeed, there is a huge-ass gas leak in her apartment. And since there aren't separate meters for the separate apartments, they need to shut off the gas to her apartment in her apartment. They can't do it at a meter in the basement or anything.
When they inform her of this, she gives them a hard time again. ("Are you sure this can't wait until tomorrow? I was sleeping! You woke me up!" "Look, lady," I didn't say, "it's thanks to me that you woke up at all, so get it together.") Finally she keeps them waiting for another fifteen minutes while she shovels enough debris aside (or whatever) to allow them to pull the stove out from the wall and shut off the gas.
I'm typing this in my apartment with the window wide open, waiting for the air to clear before I go to sleep.
All of this is on top of the fact that my godson, the light of my life, almost choked on an apple he was eating, terrifying himself, me, and his mother. It's been an eventful day, full of rather prosaic danger.
And tomorrow, I teach.
"You smell gas?" I asked. "I smell gas. I smell a serious amount of gas."
"I thought I did earlier," he said. "But then I fell asleep."
I was not reassured by this.
"Call it in," he said.
I called it in. Con Ed told us to open the windows, get out of the apartment, and wait outside for them. When the guys came they scoped out my stove and said nothing was amiss. Hmm, I thought. From what they say, they're pretty much dismissing me as somebody who doesn't know the smell of pot when her boyfriend has smoked it in her apartment (he doesn't do that, because I'm allergic to pot; it makes me queasy to the point of vomiting). But I do know that smell, and as we're chatting in the hallway, one of them remembers smelling something weird as he walked past the place next door. He runs his gas detecting wand-machine along the door jamb of next door, and it clicks like crazy. Meanwhile, I walk back into my place and smell the gas odor really sharply in one particular spot. I called to the other guy to come in and he stands there for a moment and confirms yeah, he smells something strange.
The guy with the machine comes back in my apartment, stands where I stood, and follows his machine's clicks to the air vent in the wall, which connects to the apartment next door.
Where, it turns out, there's a huge-ass gas leak. For real. Before we found that out there's about 15 minutes of pounding hard on the door, me calling the Super, kicking her door, ringing her doorbell, etc., before she wakes up (but she's fully dressed and put together and there was a television on, so I don't know) and begins arguing about letting the Con Ed guys in. Now, I would be as suspicious as any woman would be about opening my door at 1 AM to two guys I don't know, but if they were wearing Con Ed uniforms and carrying clicky machine devices and talking about a gas leak, I don't think I would utter the words "Can't it wait until tomorrow morning?" My issue would be ascertaining that they were for real, not being annoyed that they were inconveniencing me. I might call Con Ed to make sure they had sent some guys to my address. But having done that, I wouldn't argue with them about whether or not they have to look at my gas connections right now.
Once they insisted that indeed, they had to check the gas connections now (for which I was grateful, because I was not going to go to sleep with the smell of gas in my apartment), she said "OK. Give me ten minutes. I'll have to clear a path."
I am a terrible housekeeper. Simply dreadful. I was embarrassed about the state of my apartment. But here's the thing: these are small apartments. I have no idea how she needed ten minutes (more like fifteen, actually), to "clear a path." There's dirty clothing and clean laundry and books and papers and shit all over my place, but...you can get to and from the stove quite easily. Anyway, they go in and ascertain that indeed, there is a huge-ass gas leak in her apartment. And since there aren't separate meters for the separate apartments, they need to shut off the gas to her apartment in her apartment. They can't do it at a meter in the basement or anything.
When they inform her of this, she gives them a hard time again. ("Are you sure this can't wait until tomorrow? I was sleeping! You woke me up!" "Look, lady," I didn't say, "it's thanks to me that you woke up at all, so get it together.") Finally she keeps them waiting for another fifteen minutes while she shovels enough debris aside (or whatever) to allow them to pull the stove out from the wall and shut off the gas.
I'm typing this in my apartment with the window wide open, waiting for the air to clear before I go to sleep.
All of this is on top of the fact that my godson, the light of my life, almost choked on an apple he was eating, terrifying himself, me, and his mother. It's been an eventful day, full of rather prosaic danger.
And tomorrow, I teach.