I no sooner report that all has calmed down here, and I go and set my house afire!! A couple of weeks ago, I tossed a bath towel from my bathroom floor down the clothes chute that goes from my upstairs bath to my basement laundry room. This is the very same clothes chute that I constantly encourage my teens to use, rather than throwing their dirty clothes on the bathroom  floor. I also remind them how important it is to actually walk down the steps to the laundry room to check where those clothes end up. In our old house, built in the early 1920s, some brillliant designer or builder had the bright idea to build the clothes chute smack next to the hot water tank. So, when you throw clothing down the chute, you really need to go down and make sure that it hasn't  landed too close to the flame under the tank. I should have taken my own advice!

Okay, that said, back to my story. I threw the towel down the chute, and then got into the shower. After a few minutes, my 20 year old son was at the bathroom door yelling, "Mom -- something is on fire in the basement!!" Those are mighty scary words! When I pulled back the shower curtain and turned off the water, I could hear the smoke alarms going off. When I wrapped a towel around my soaking wet self and opened the bathroom door, I saw billowing white smoke (already at the 2nd floor!!) and smelled the burning whatever it was!

I ran with my towel to the basement, turning off smoke alrams as I went, and calling to my son to stay upstairs and phone 911 for the fire department. I had no idea what I would find when I got to the basement! As I rounded the bottom of the steps, I could see flames -- the water tank was in flames caused by the towel which had caught on the flex pipe and hung to the floor, then caught on fire from the gas flame under the tank. The towel and the side of the tank were in flames now. A table sitting next to the tank was also on fire, as was a throw rug on the floor.

So many things ran through my mind in those first seconds after seeing the flames. I have never experienced a house fire before. I knew I had to put it out if I could. I knew the tank was natural gas and posed an explosion hazard, but I was not sure where the gas shutoff valve was. There was water spraying out of the bottom of the tank, so I absent-mindedly turned off the water running to the tank - duh! It's a 40 gallon tank full of water -- it's gonna lose water for a while. Mind you, I am still holding my towel that I grabbed on my way out of the shower. There is no way you can fight a fire while holding a towel around you -- this was no time for modesty I decided, so I let the towel drop. I grabbed the wet throw rug from the floor and smothered the rug that was on fire. Then I ran to the utility tub, ran some water into a scrub bucket and ran back to the tank and threw the water on it. Not nearly enough water to put out the fire. I pulled the burning towel off the tank with a dowel rod that was sitting nearby and smothered that with the wet throw rug. Ran back for more water in the bucket -- I did this bucket thing about 5 times and finally put out the fire on the tank and the table. All the while I was running naked across my laundry room, I was praying to God not to let the tank explode. I was seeing headlines in the local papers abut this crazy naked woman whose charred body was found blown out of her home by a flaming hot water tank! Not a pretty picture!

Just as I doused the last of the flames, my son yelled to me that the firemen were coming. About time, I thought! Then I realized that I had better get some clothes on! I grabbed my towel from the wet floor, wrapped it around myself, and ran back upstairs, telling my son as I flew past to let the guys in while I got dressed. When I returned downstairs, I explained to them that I had put out the fire, but I didn't  mention the naked part of the story (some things are better left out.)  The house was filled with smoke from the basement to the 2nd story. The firemen brought in these huge fans, opened all the doors and windows (not fun during January in Ohio!) and sucked all the smoke out of the house in about a half hour. The smoke smell stayed for a couple of days. The plumbers brought me a new tank the same day. We cleaned up the mess in the laundry room and I re-washed all the clean laundry that was down there, which all smelled like burning bath towels. I have been counting my blessings every day since -- the fire chief told me if my son had not been home to hear the smoke alrams, and if I had finished my shower before discovering the fire, it is likely that my entire basement and main floor would have been in flames by then. I am still wondering who told him that Ii take long showers . . .  hmmm. Well, like I said, there is never a dull moment around here!

PS - it seems the crazy junk in my life is far more interesting these days than what I am doing with wool and paint! When it all gets dull again, I'll have more news about Folk 'n'  Fiber!