Do you know where to find the closest fire extinguisher? I thought I knew where mine was… until yesterday afternoon when I ran around my office with my fingers crossed, praying that I wouldn’t really need a fire extinguisher. Now with all the recent tales of exploding laptops, you might think it was a high-tech calamity that had me tearing about. Rather, yesterday’s frenzy centered on ranchero indebto’s old-school iron…
Halfway through cutting the lawn, I noticed an abnormally loud exhaust note and more than the usual amount of smoke emanating from the tractor’s trusty 12.5 HP Kohler engine.
“Just getting old,” I thought.
With impending rain and a front approaching, I finished up fairly quickly. As I drove old green up the ramp into the shed, I realized that the din had become quite loud. No sooner did I turn the key, then the smoke really started pouring from the front of the engine. I jumped out of the saddle, hauled the tractor back down the loading ramp, and pushed her twenty feet away from the structure.
It was at that moment that I remembered that our fire extinguisher – yes, our only fire extinguisher – was back in the garage, behind the door to my office.
At least I thought it was.
I stood transfixed for a moment, watching the smoke billow, praying that it wouldn’t catch fire (if it hadn’t already) and blow sky high. Then I high-tailed it back to the house to fetch the fire extinguisher.
But the fire extinguisher wasn’t behind the door. After five minutes of furious searching, it wasn’t to be found at all.
The smoke soon subsided, thankfully. Old green lives to see another day.
I’ve vowed to locate the fire extinguisher (or have the garden hose handy) before I fire her up next week. Come to think of it, I might want to get a new life insurance policy first… Sheesh, I’ve only gone without for three years…