A Night in the Smokehouse

Yesterday we were admiring the nice Fall smell. You know, burning firewood and the like. The problem is, it didn't go away. By midnight it was annoying, like the nice Fall smell was trying to give us a headache.
By 3:00 AM it was just overpowering, like the nice Fall smell wanted to smother us. I opened up windows and put up fans, and looked out the window at all the chimneys thinking, "Who has such an annoying chimney? I'm going to have to call the burrough office tomorrow and put in a complaint." The fans helped some of the house smell better, but parts of the house actually smelled worse. It was puzzling.


In the morning, Leigh asked me to spray some Febreze on the couch and several other cloth items. Then our neighbor, Junior Uini, noticed that the mulch in front of the apartment was actually smoldering, disintegrating bricks, and sending smoke rolling up the front of our building. This is what it looked like after the firemen left -- isn't it decorative? It actually burned the bottom front of our place!



So, here are some lessons:
1a. Mulch is spontaneously flamable.
1b. God was looking out for us!
2. You can't mask a fire with Febreze.
3. You need your neighbors.
4. My kids don't really care about fire trucks too much.