Terror before the dawn
A true story of a near near-death experience

Disclaimer: This story isn’t mine. It’s my friend Linda’s. I did not obtain Linda’s permission to place this story here but I’m afraid if I ask her, she’ll say no. So I’m going to go ahead on the premise I learned as a teenager that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Of course, all names, dates and locations have been changed to protect the innocent. *wink,wink*

Linda is married but her husband is out of town. A few days ago she was blissfully slumbering away when her carbon monoxide detector (CMD) went off at 4 a.m. This, naturally, sent a bit of panic through Linda. She grabbed her cordless phone and high-tailed it outside into the fresh air. Once safe, she called 911. Unfortunately, this emergency response person (ERP) seemed to be less than highly trained. When Linda told the dispatcher her CMD was going off, the dispatcher asked Linda what she wanted her to do about it? Linda, somewhat agitated, told her she didn’t know what needed to be done. That’s why she was calling her!! After some serious thought on the part of the ERP (which I suspect may have been quite painful) she finally gave Linda the number to the local gas company.

Linda hangs up from 911 and the oh-so-helpful ERP and calls the gas company. Crap. The number the ERP gave her was a daytime number and no one would be there till 8 a.m. (Remember it was 4 a.m. when the CMD went off a few minutes ago.)

Aggravated now, as well as agitated, Linda hangs up, calls the ERP back and informs her that the number she gave her for the gas company is not manned at 4 a.m. Again, the ERP asks Linda what she wants her to do. At this point, Linda really, really wants to scream, “FREAKIN’ FIX IT!!” Maintaining her control, however, she merely tells the ERP that she needs something to be done. The ERP finally decides she can call the fire department for Linda. She also recommended Linda go in and open up all the windows to air the house out. Yes, that would be go into an apparently carbon monoxide-filled house. Brilliant.

So, Linda goes in, opens all the windows and goes back out to safety. After a few minutes, two men from the fire department arrive, fortunately WITHOUT sirens as Linda thinks her neighbors already think she’s nuts. They came in, looked around and told Linda that they couldn’t find anything. They might have been able to if she hadn’t opened all the windows. At this point, Linda is seriously ready to throttle the worthless ERP.

Linda waits until a decent hour then calls her son-in-law, Greg, who works for the gas company. Greg comes out and looks around. Linda explains that, when the CMD first went off it was flashing a code … L3 … L3 … L3. The fire fighters had re-set it, though. Greg looks around, finds no cause for alarm then asks Linda if she happened to be wearing her glasses when all this transpired. Linda informs him, “Hell no I wasn’t wearing my glasses! It was 4 a.m. and I was wakened from a sound sleep!” Greg sheepishly tells her that he only asks if she was sure it was L3 and not LB …. You know, as in LOW BATTERY????

Ummmm ……............


I am happy to report that a change of battery has cleared up Linda’s carbon monoxide problem and her detector hasn’t gone off again since.