Look, before I say anything, let me just tell you that I’m a pretty safe person. Aside from sky diving and climbing mountains here or there or biking down ski paths, I’m pretty safe, really. I always get tied in when I rock climb.

So it’s no surprise that when I walk in after grabbing my daughter from the bus and the living room is suddenly filled with smoke when for the last four hours it was not, I freaked my shit out and called 911.

And hey! Firemen!

They took my info: I was home all day (working). I tried to start a fire at 9AM but I suck at it so I put it out. At 3PM I took a shower (let’s discuss how I didn’t have a chance to shower until now. No? Now’s not the time?) and walked out of the house to get my daughter. After SIX HOURS of not having smoke in the house, or a fire, the room filled with smoke caused me some… alarm.

Five young men suited up for fire came in to my house, looked around assessed the outside. There was discussion. “You know HOW to use the fireplace, right?” YES. JESUS. .. SORTA. The Flue was open, right? YES JESUS.. I THINK. “You know how to correctly put out a fire, right?” YES.. JESUS.. WITH SAND.

That last one is just for Smokey the Bear.

At any rate, after some discussion about the chimney, which possibly was on fire, no, maybe not, well, it could be a chimney fire… oh wait WHAT IS THIS?

Why, it’s a PRESTO log that suddenly began smoldering again.

As if it is risen from the dead, the presto log came alive, during those five minutes I walked to the bus stop, and filled my house with smoke.

I think the youngest fireman laughed when they carried the log out to the back and “put out the fire”.

No, I’m sure he did.

Either way, I’ll be going to purchase some new smoke alarms since not ONE of them went off. I’ll also be getting a chimney sweep and an escape later for upstairs.

Because Internet? Repeat it with me: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

Right? Right.

God I feel like a dipshit right now.

**I don’t know what’s up with my comments. Apparently today is broken. But thank you for letting me know I’m not a “DIPSHIP” and that I’m just a very safe, very careful, very responsible person with a plan.

And I still feel pretty stupid. But at least I confessed it to the Internet.