This weekend we had three shows in a row - Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The first show was local, but the Friday show was in Kemah, which is about 4 hours away when you take into consideration a stop for lunch and rush-hour traffic in Houston, which we hit, of course, since we played the 6-10pm slot.
Normally, we drive home after shows - even very late ones. We'd all rather sleep in our own beds and be home when we wake up the next day. But we knew that our Saturday show would be a late show (9:30pm-1:30am), and it was in Waco, which meant more travel. We decided that would be a really hard show to do if we didn't get to bed until 2am or later (since I can never sleep late even if I get to bed at the crack of dawn). So, we decided to spend the night in Houston - get to bed at a reasonable hour and get some sleep before making the trek back to Central Texas.
A good, responsible plan designed to reduce stress and give everyone plenty of rest!
Except that an hour and a half after we left the house, I realized I'd left an appliance plugged in at the house - one with a heating element. Fire. Hazard.
Anyone who has ever lived with me can tell you that this is not unusual. I'm the worst about leaving stuff on. It's a flaw - possibly an undiagnosed mental illness. If I were famous, it would be an "eccentricity." But seeing as I am not famous, it's just a really bad, dangerous habit.
I immediately thought about the house burning down. What did we have with us and what would we lose? I thought about our neighbor. Our houses are really close - would her house catch fire from ours? Then I thought about our cat - she's old, deaf and crotchety. Would she notice the fire in time and be able to get out? ANXIETY!
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| Shut up, Ryan Gosling! It's not YOUR cat dying a horrific death in a fire YOU caused! |
Plan 2: We called a neighbor. He was home and he went over to the house to unplug the appliance for us. Hooray! When he got there, though, our spare key was not where it was supposed to be. That meant no one could get inside. Dammit.
Plan 3: The neighbor offered to look in the window of the room where the appliance was and see if he could at least verify that the appliance was on (I was sure it was, but verification is always nice before you panic). Unfortunately, we'd carefully put all the blinds down, so there was no way to see in. Dammit, dammit.
Plan 4: Turn off the breaker to the room where the appliance is. Just one problem - it was on the same breaker as the refrigerator. We would only be gone 24 hours. That might be okay. Except that was also the breaker that our burglar alarm is on. So, all of our food might spoil AND the house would be unprotected. Dammit, dammit, dammit!
We weighed the various options and risks and ended up deciding to throw the dice and just hope that the appliance didn't catch on fire or cause a short. What else could we really do except turn around and miss the gig? So, our neighbor promised he'd keep an eye on the place and call 911 if he saw smoke, and onto our gig we rolled.
The gig went well, and we went on to our hotel. We thought about driving back early, but it was too late to cancel our hotel reservation, and our neighbor was watching things, so we stuck to our original plan.
It wasn't the best night of sleep I ever got, but when we got home, all was well. No fire. The appliance wasn't even damaged beyond some cosmetic discoloring where the heat had been on for 24 hours. The cat was still old, crotchety and alive.
Much relieved, we unpacked from Kemah, re-set ourselves, and went on to Waco Saturday night. But before we left, I made sure I'd turned off anything that could set fire to the house. I think.
Talking Heads, eat your heart out.
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