My Saturday Afternoon...

Today was odd and productive. I didn't have anything specifically planned which was nice. I knew that I wanted to clean up the front yard and prune the roses since it's been so warm. And since it's been so warm, we had tons of roses blooming. I cut them and put them in my house and now my kitchen smells lovely. :) Yay!

Anyway, back to my misadventure of the day.

As I was going in and out of the garage as I was cleaning the front yard, I kept noticing this odd smell as I would walk into the garage through the house. At first I barely registered it and brushed it off. The second time I smelled it, it was a bit stronger, but not enough to prompt me to figure out what it was. It smelled a bit like gas or like something had died in the attic--but it wasn't really strong enough for me to know absolutely like it was gas. I kind of shrugged it off and went about my business. The third time I smelled it, I figured I should probably figure out what it was, and if anything make sure it wasn't gas.

I just knew that if I called PG&E and reported a gas leak, they wouldn't find anything and I would feel like an over-reactive idiot.

I called my mom to see what she thought. Yeah, she kind of freaked out. Then I felt like more of an idiot. I promised I would call PG&E and at least have them come check it out. I figured it's best to be safe than sorry.

I reported the possible leak and was told to evacuate the premise immediately. Great. That was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon. :( The thing was that I had to stay nearby. I couldn't go anywhere fun. double :(. So I packed up the important stuff in my car (heck yes my scrapbooks were loaded up) and I suddenly wished I had a 72 hour pack so I could feel cool and prepared--even though it was completely unnecessary.

So I grabbed a book and an apple and waited in my car for about 40 minutes. The PG&E man came and checked it out and said that there was a leak (YAY! I wasn't imagining things!) and that it was so minor that it wasn't even a hazard (so I did over-react...bummer). Apparently the "leak" was through the pilot light in our heater not shutting on and off correctly. Then he tested the heater and it wouldn't even turn on. GREAT. Not. :( At least I didn't have to be evacuated anymore.

I was a displaced citizen for only 40 minutes. Lame.

I tried to convince the PG&E guy to condemn our heater so that we could get a new one (this is the third time it's broken in a year) but he said he couldn't, that the problem isn't even a hazard. All he could do was turn off the heater and turn off the gas line. So now it's going to get really cold in my house.

After I called the management company to have someone come fix our heater because the temperature is supposed to be in the upper 20's tonight. Yeah, that's cold when you don't have a heater, in case you didn't know. They told me that maybe Monday it'll be fixed if the guy is available. And that's how they roll. :/ Hopefully Monday we can have our heater again. Which would be nice because the temperature tomorrow night will be in the low 20's.

All in all it was a mixed misadventure. Somewhat hilarious that we had to be evacuated, and somewhat embarrassing because, despite there being a minute leak, it wasn't enough to be a hazard. Oy.

At least we're all safe. So that is a good thing, right? Yeah, ok. Probably. ;)