And now the rest of the story.... (As written by Dudette)
While WD was doing his final quality review of the dryer hook up, Chew and I were standing around trying to be helpful. This consisted of holding tools, moving the washer and dryer around, and just generally looking cute.
As we were all congratulating ourselves on the succesful completion of the assigned task, WD then decided it was time to rearrange the exhaust hose. I was a little irritated with him at this point because the kids had somewhere to be and I was trying to hurry him along. Of course, he then had to make his point by moving things around just right and causing the initial spark. All Chew and I saw was a pretty good "glow" from behind the dryer. We realized pretty quickly that there was a problem when WD yanked the exhaust hose out of the ceiling and we had burning lint and hose flopping around on the floor.
At this point, both WD and myself started doing the "Fire Dance" to stomp out the ignited materials. Chew raced upstairs to ask CK for some help. It went something like this:
Chew: Um....fire??!
CK: Yea, I think it is over at the old apartment.
Chew: No, no, I mean Fire!
CK: Nope, the fire extinguisher is over at the old apartment!
Chew: WE HAVE A FIRE!
At this point, they are both on the same page, so they wet down a handful of kitchen towels and ran them downstairs. As they got to the basement, all the smoke detectors start going off, adding to the general panic.
Shortly after this, we have the fire out and are just generally looking like any one of us might have a stroke from the excitement! The smoke is thick so Chew and CK open windows and set up the one fan they have to exhaust the smoke.
WD turns off the power to the utility room and starts evaluating what exactly happened. The rest of us start cleaning up the burned up debris and wiping down the black smudged washer and dryer.
Of course we had the obligatory recount of the events. I then realized that we were a couple feet away from a bathroom that had a basket full of laundry that we could have wet down and thrown on the flaming mess! I guess it is much easier to figure out what we COULD have done when not in the middle of a panic situation!
All I can say is that I will try to keep my irritation under control in the future when I think WD is taking too much time to assure proper set up and operation of household items!
Excitement happens. (also by Dudette)
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