HOLY SH^T

Holy Ba Holy... you should clock my heart rate right now. It's been over an hour, but still it's pounding like a hammer to nails. What could cause such pumping action, you ask? Get this... I almost burnt down my entire house tonight!

Actually, not ME. Rather, it was the floor pole lamp in my living room, that was about to do in my otherwise perfectly wonderful abode. I swear... I FREAKED. I couldn't beLIEVE what was going on.

It all came about as follows: I came home from a wonderful dinner party, got undressed, piddled around the kitchen, etc. Then, as on all evenings, I decided it was time to call it a night and close down the house in preparation for going to bed. I went through my regular little routine of taking bedtime meds, grabbing a drink to bring to the bedroom, and turning off the switch to this floor lamp in the living room. THE NEXT THING I F-ING KNEW, there was a MAJOR pop of the 3 way bulb in the lamp, fireworks began sparking and flying all over the place, crazzzzzzy sounds began coming from the wall plug and dark, deep smoke started billowing out into the entire living room, creating the most horrible stench you can imagine. YIKES. I felt like I was in a mock exercise for my local fire department except the firemen, unlike me, would have known exactly what to do.

OH MY GOD, I thought. MY HOUSE IS ABOUT BURN DOWN TO A MAJOR CRISP. AND, A HUGE FIRE IS ABOUT TO DESTROY EVERYTHING I OWN. EEEEEEEKS. Being heavy into survivor mode, I then thought, WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO?? OH MY GOD. HELP.

I ran my ass quickly to the kitchen sink, wishing I had a WAY LONG fire hose to pull out, but luckily I had the wherewithal to realize that wasn't an option. So instead, I grabbed a HUGE metal bowl, filled it as high as I could and RAN to the burning/smoking bulb and it's vicious odor. I stood on my tip toes as high as possible and POURED THE WATER RIGHT SMACK OVER THE TOP OF THE LAMP, DOWN INTO IT'S BULB SOCKET. As the water went in, indeed, it put out the burning insides, BUT THEN, the next thing I know, the water went down the pole a bit, and then came spilling out of the on/off switch, draining black water right smack onto my Berber carpeting! God... I felt like I was going from bad to worse, but then I was thinking: the hell with the carpet and odor... at least the exploding light bulb was no longer on fire and yippee... I WAS GOING TO LIVE. Just be sure however, I ran right back and repeated my water saving efforts, this time also adding the ever important survivor technique of PULLING THE PLUG OUT OF THE WALL.

Oh my God... this was simply a crazy experience, to say the least. Not to mention: SCARY AS SH^T. Finally, I opened all the doors... screw the 35 degree temps outside... and began airing out the foul smell, SO glad that my house was still in tact. I also laid down towels, trying to absorb the black water deal, calming myself by saying: Don't worry. Call Jason, the carpet cleaning guy on Monday and bingo. It'll be fine.

As a final touch, I carried the pole lamp out to my front porch, concluding it's better to keep it out THERE overnight rather than having it inside my house. That way, it could burn down all the surrounding homes if it wanted... it just couldn't burn down MINE. Yeah, yeah, I know... mighty neighborly of me, but... like I said. I was in survivor mode.

So.... basically, all's well that ends well, but of course NOW I'm headed to bed with a whole NEW meaning to: Lights Out.