Unfortunately, Fortunately, The Dog Was There
One night when I was 26, I woke to the sound of a dog barking, trotting back and forth next to my bed. For a split second, I wondered what the dog, A.J., was doing. He was my favorite dog at the time. We always watched him when his owners went out of town; he would never wake me up rudely like this. Then I took a breath and immediately choked on a wall of smoke. The smoke tasted like chemicals and was so thick I could nearly chew it. I sat up and realized I could barely see my legs in the bed, let alone the frantic Akita, bouncing nervously beside me, letting out low, regular woofs. Everything was fogged in with thick, white smoke.
“Fire!” I screamed. “Sarah, fire!”
I continued to scream as the dog and I ran down the rickety stairs of the A-frame cabin. A.J.’s dog bed lay smoldering on top of our massive furnace grate under the stairs, a large hole burnt through it, the edges of the hole ringed with orange embers. Thick sheets of pure white smoke shot upwards towards my room. I quickly opened my roommate Sarah’s door and yelled at her. Then, still screaming, I grabbed a corner of the bed and brought it outside. I stood there dumbly for a few seconds, pinching a corner of the bed, not wanting to throw it off the deck and start a forest fire. I couldn’t set it down on the wooden deck, either. Sarah showed up behind me, registered what was happening, and ran back in for a jug of water. I remember standing on the porch, staring back at our house in disbelief. Sarah had turned a light on, and the white smoke absolutely poured out of the house in an upwards funnel, a stream of smoke rushing out for fresh air, same as we had. We stood there, contemplating how close we’d been to having a major house fire, coughing from the smoke, and petting A.J.
The dog had saved us. Also, if the dog hadn’t been there, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
My roommate and close friend Sarah and I had been in San Francisco for the weekend for some ski movie showings—I had made it into my first ski movie the year before. I was still working restaurants and driving the beverage cart on a golf course, but had just gotten my first contract for skiing lined up and was planning to take the winter off. It was September, which is why when we’d gotten home late and exhausted the night before, we hadn’t moved the dog bed.
Our friend—A.J.’s owner—had dropped him off earlier that evening, and thrown the bed in the only available out-of-the-way floor spot in our tiny rental cabin: under the stairs. In the two years we’d lived there, we’d never bothered to turn the heat on or off. It was some ancient system that was set to a certain temperature. When it got cold enough, the thing roared to life with a massive shudder, shaking the floor and sending hot air directly upstairs and nowhere else in the house. Once, Sarah had left her ski boots on it to dry and they melted. The thing was sketchy at best.
The last time the furnace had turned on was back in May so we hadn’t given it a second thought. I mean, I DID have a tiny pinprick of a thought when I saw where the bed was, but we were exhausted, it was late. It had been a warm fall Tahoe day. Or was it? I don’t actually know. We were in San Francisco, trying Blue Bottle coffee for the first time—having our minds blown by how good pour-over coffee could be—and watching some sailing races on the pier. It had been warm in San Francisco and so I hadn’t let the pinprick thought about the dog bed go any further.
We slept on the porch that night, front door wide open, and we had to air the house out for weeks to get rid of the toxic chemical smell. But otherwise, there was no lasting damage to us or the house.
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This story reminds me of a game we like to play with our kids, in the car or when we are hiking, called "Fortunately, Unfortunately.”
The game works where you take turns saying one line of a developing story, alternating between the “Fortunately” lines and the “Unfortunately” lines—it works best with an odd number of people so you get to switch parts. In this case, it could have gone like:
“Fortunately, we got to watch A.J., our favorite dog.”
“Unfortunately, we weren’t there to greet him when he arrived.”
“Fortunately, the bed was put out of the way, under the stairs.”
“Unfortunately, the furnace came on and burnt up the dog bed and made a lot of smoke!”
“Fortunately, the dog woke us up and saved the day!”
And so on. Just like life!
I can definitely say that we ended on a “Fortunately” that night. Reflecting back, I learned a lot, mostly to make sure I know how the furnace works and to never cover up a heater grate. Try to listen to the pinpricks. And lastly, dogs are amazing.
Thanks for reading!
And a note—I didn’t mean for this story to be at all insensitive for those who have lost their homes to fire. I suppose the fires have been lurking on the edges of everyone’s mind, and my heart goes out to all who have been affected.
A few links this week:
Resources for LA wildfire relief, in one place
Is Climate Change to Blame for the Fires? Some Compelling Evidence…
And some lighter reading: A Lorne Michaels Profile if you’re an SNL fan like me. :)
Ingrid
