Last Night at the Guest's

So here's a funny story that speaks to the craziness of having three kids and owning a home and probably divine intervention:

Last night, about 10pm, Jen and I notice our 18-month-old furnace is acting strangely. We go downstairs to investigate. We immediately smell gas. Call the gas company. We have to evacuate the house. At 10:15pm. This means waking, dressing warmly (35 degree temps), and putting three kids in the car and sitting down the road to wait for the gas man. He comes with a voice like a megaphone. After an hour it's safe to re-enter the house. Turns out the 3yr old stove, that I had used a couple hours before to cook a quiche, is leaking gas like a deflating pool.

Of course, it's an old house, so the gas man and I have to disassemble the basement to get to the gas meter (long story abt previous owners poor remodeling decisions; seriously, who covers the gas meter with a built in bookshelf?). The gas meter is also leaking gas so it needs to be replaced. At midnight. And this man is not quiet either. So he bangs in a new meter. Kids wide awake upstairs. Anyway, he gets it in and turns the gas on and starts rechecking appliances.

Checks the hot water heater first. It's as old as me and so it's, of course it's not up to code (missing a cheap piece of plastic piping it's never had in the 5+ years we've lived here) so he can't legally light it for us. The stove also has to remain off and in need of a repair man. Next comes the furnace. It's getting gas, but it's not staying on. Keeps cycling. Can't figure it out. So he has to keep it off too. He leaves about 1:30am. And we get everyone back to sleep.

So after a short night without heat and a morning temporarily without hot water (new heater on the way; old one took me an hour to re-light because of crappy pipes and air problems. It's also totally safe to be in operation for a few days per the off-the-record opinion of the gas man so no one need freak over that right now) I get ahold of the furnace guy to come check. Meanwhile we've ordered a new hot water heater for Monday and got a stove repair man to come check the stove Monday too. Monday is gonna be awesome.

So the furnace guy comes this afternoon. Checks the machine. Runs diagnostics. The thing is getting gas. It's lighting but shutting off. Like a car engine that won't turn over. He can't figure it out. Brings in a new circuit board to test it out. After an hour of working on it with no luck, he walks the property. I mentioned we have three kids right? Well. Yes. One of them (LUCY) had moved our patio furniture in front of the vent yesterday afternoon when they were playing outside. This vent, when covered, causes the furnace to shut off. So that's all it was. It was Lucy's fault.

But the stove was leaking a lot of gas into the basement at the moment the furnace stopped working. So it's impossible not to be thankful. Kids work for you too. In fact, they pretty much always work for you (except maybe that time Isaac flooded the basement a year ago but even that forced an unknowingly pregnant-at-the-time Jen to organize and sort old baby clothes and saved us time later). We are all ok. The house is ok. The kids are ok. It was just that kind of night.

So yeah. Kids. They require a sense of humor. And, not a day goes by where I don't think it's the same kind of humor God has.