I Could Have Died, and No One Would Know.

In my quest to eat something other than chicken for dinner, I got fancy. Tacos.
I know! I sound like a 5-star restaurant over here.

The process isn’t hard. Put meat in skillet, cook meat, drain fat, add water and taco seasoning. Ole! Tacos created. Naturally, I screwed this process up. Typical, right? The meat created a lot of smoke, and (most likely because I was distracted by a phone call) I had failed to open up my windows or turn on a fan, so my smoke detector went off.

I had a temporary moment of panic, quickly learning that I can’t reach my smoke detector (duh Jackie.) nor can I pull the battery. I don’t mind the loud buzzing, but I was terrified that the fire department was going to show up to my smoke-filled apartment with fire hoses ready as I stood there in my sombrero with my tacos sizzling on the stove, quickly becoming “that girl” in my apartment unit.

The alarm went off for just under a minute because I fanned the smoke away, but went off another two times before I could get my windows open to start airing out my apartment.

So, what did I learn?

1. Open windows when creating smokey food items
2. Don’t take phone calls when operating a stove
3. My smoke detector works
4. NO ONE WILL COME IF MY SMOKE DETECTOR GOES OFF

Slightly concerning. No phone call, no knock on my door, no fire department showing up, nothing. Maybe I’m new at this (which is a very fortunate thing for me), but when the alarm goes off, doesn’t that mean something’s wrong?

This whole thing then made me think of the worst – what if I was home and there was a fire? Or some sort of gas leak or crazy axe murderer? What if I died in my apartment?! Yes, I’m overreacting, but I live alone, which means all of these things could happen and no one would know for a while. Thank you Law and Order for freaking me out. Adding another “con” to the list of not having a room mate!