Hero and Fool

Last night we discovered how one could be both a hero and a fool over the same matter.

My husband had been in the garage waxing the bottom of our skis. For the uninitiated, a nice fresh layer of wax makes you glide much quicker down the hill. A hot iron is used to properly melt and spread the wax, a process that literally stinks. So I didn't think much of it when I could smell a bit of the hot wax in the kitchen, which shares a door with the garage.

I did become somewhat concerned when, an hour after my husband finished, I could smell it a bit stronger, this time in the living room. And when I went to bed several hours later, the smell had now grown even a bit stronger and had reached the bedroom. I asked my husband and he said not to worry, he couldn't smell a thing.

In the middle of the night, my husband awoke with a headache and became alarmed at the smell he could finally smell. He followed his nose out to the garage but upon a cursory inspection could not find the source. The iron had been dutifully unplugged and the wax had hardened so neither were the culprit.

No flames, only a thin wisp of smoke to be seen but definitely a strong, unpleasant odor. And then he looked up.

There, next to the doorway is a bare light bulb. And next to the bulb is a shelf. And on that shelf we stack kleenex boxes. Been doing it for years except this time, a box had slid and was resting directly on the bulb. I should say, what was left of the box. That sucker had collapsed and inside was a hunk of black ashes.



That seemingly innocent light bulb became a heat source that could have brought our house down in flames.


My husband was my hero for finding the potential danger, but at the same time we both felt the fool for our stupidity. Let me count the ways:

1. Having a high wattage, bare bulb in the garage.
2. Stacking paper near a heat source. I had thought about that once or twice over the years but shrugged it off.
3. Turning off the fire alarm over the door that leads into the house. My husband did that while he was waxing the skis so it wouldn't set off the alarm but he forget to reset it when done.
4. My husband ignoring my complaints about the smell.
5. My not making a bigger deal about the smell despite my husband's reassurances, because honestly, that man's "smeller" just doesn't work very well. Never has.
6. My taking a cursory glance in the garage and not trying to track down the source, or get my husband to do it.
7. Opening our bedroom sliding door for fresh air to counter the smell and us going to bed.

Thank the Lord that my husband was soon awakened, got up and went to inspect. Thank the Lord that it was a slow, smoldering burn that didn't burst into flames. Thank the Lord that we will have the stinky smell lingering only in our garage for awhile as a grim reminder of what could have been.