The Gas Man Can

Today started off like any other “normal” day in PTC. I drug my butt out of bed, got ready, and went to work. I was so tired that I decided to go home over the lunch hour to take a nap. As I opened my door I got a scent of gas. Becoming callous to near death experiences from living in a continual state of trying to be murdered and being extremely tired, I decided to ignore the gas and just go to sleep anyway. So I lay down. I got up and as I walked out my door I noted that I should check the pilots when I got home from work tonight.

When I got home from work, I opened my door and smelled gas again. This time I checked my water heater. The pilot was fine. Then I checked my range. It is a gas range but it is an eclectic starter. So there was no possibility for a pilot light to be out. I called Whirlpool to see if they had any suggestions on what one should check to make sure their stove was not slowly trying to kill them. I got a message saying that they were closed. Awesome.

I check the range manual and it said that if you smell gas, call the gas company. So logically I called my brother in Minnesota instead hoping that he could give me some better words of wisdom. No luck.

I finally gave in and called the gas company. They told me that there was an abnormally large reporting of gas leaks in my neighborhood. And that I needed to leave my house immediately. A technician was on his way and would be there within the next half of an hour to an hour. I was not to touch anything, not even to hang up the phone. I didn’t tell them that I had been turning on and off all the appliances and had turned on all my gas burners. So I let them hang up on me and I did what I thought was right. I cleaned up my place so that the gas man would not know what a slob I was. I called people and stood in my laundry room folding my clothes. I even thought about baking a potato but couldn’t think of a good thing to say when the gas man came and asked me what I was doing. I walked outside ever once in a while to pretend like I was “doing the right thing.” I figured that I had opened enough windows that if I just stood outside it was the same as being inside by the window. Maybe that was the gas talking.

After an hour had passed I decided to call the gas company back. They told me that because of the increase in calls they were running behind. About an hour behind. Well, here I am; 8:30. I am hungry, NO starving. And I am looking at my steak that wants me to eat it. And of course I am writing a blog instead of standing outside for the gas company to come fix my problem. I even thought about calling the gas company back telling them that I think I can afford to lose a few brain cells and still function in this state. That they could just come tomorrow. But I guess I should “play by the rules” or whatever.

Have I become that callous? Do I don’t even care anymore? Should I just stick my head in the oven and get it over with? Ug…I need to walk away. Go check to make sure my neighbors are still alive.

Well the gas man just came and finally left. After he talked to me forever and showed me pictures of his grandkids. I love to talk but it is 10:30 and I haven’t even eaten yet. I did learn that I have a gas leak in the connector of my stove to the gas line. The gas man turned off my gas to the stove and gave my oven a nice new tag. Very thoughtful of him. He told me that in a normal day they get 20 gas leak calls. Today he got 300 and that was why it took him 3 hours to get here.

Great…hold on I have to see what the sheep are up to. They stopped making noise.

"Let's play gas man"
(no sheep were hurt in the taking this picture.)

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Well I had a hard time keeping the sheep from playing “Gas Man.” Now I will have to deal with coming home to Jesse’s head in the oven every day. Well that was enough excitement for one day. O look it is midnight and the gas man is working across the street. Poor gas man. Guess I will call to get my oven fixed tomorrow. Good night…hopefully I will wake up in the morning.