Something’s Burning!

I’m here to discuss a serious topic today. Perhaps the post title gives it away or perhaps it’s the look on my stunning face.

To an outsider, it may seem as if TW is the panicky sort; and, yeah, she does sweat the little things a bit too much. When an emergency strikes, she has been known to keep her wits about her. There was that time I got my head stuck in the handles of a plastic shopping bag when I was much younger. Pop was chasing me around screaming; TW got the scissors, calmly called me over and cut the handle. There was also the carbon monoxide incident. Then there was this other time … oh wait, there wasn’t.

Monday when she was leaving to do her chores, she smelled something burning while she was riding the elevator to the lobby. Her first thought was that it was coming from outside since it was a windy day. When she didn’t smell it outside, she figured someone was doing work in the building. She told the concierge who promptly put in a call to the Super. On her way back, she inquired to see if they had found the cause of the smell. The concierge couldn’t get in touch with the Super so he had one of the porters checking it out. They finally saw the Super who said he smelled it and they were “taking care of it.”  TW took the elevator upstairs since the smell seemed to be gone.

About 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, we were awaken to the sound of the fire alarm in the common hall. TW was dressed in a second. She knew this wasn’t the usual “alarms activated” since she had smelled smoke the day before. In a building with multiple floors, you are usually told in stay in your apartment rather than run out.

The fireman’s daughter in her took hold and she felt the door to see if it was hot. Then she opened it and looked in the hall for any smoke or fire. She didn’t see anything and the alarm was still sounding so she called the concierge. He told her FD was there and was checking the building. She decided to wait it out with me to try to keep me calm. I didn’t like the loud alarms going off. While we were waiting, she turned on Pop’s scanner which is usually mostly calls by FDNY rather than local ones. We were in luck because the first thing we heard was from G Avenue Command, which was our building. We heard FD mention smoke in the elevator shaft and a possible fire in the motor room. Apparently, the motor had overheated and started burning. GASP!

TW knows that elevator fires are not to be taken lightly. They can quickly shoot up to the roof and into the cock lofts and turn spectacular. The next words she uttered are not suitable for kittens. The cleaned up version went something like “those horses patooties should have listened to me yesterday but, no, they had to wait till the overheated motor caught fire.” Lucky for us, FD distinguished [sic] the fire quickly and reset the alarms.

Pop did dash off a note to the new complex management where he told them that the super should have taken TW’s report seriously on Monday. Apparently his idea of “taking care of it” was having Fernando spray the elevator to get rid of the odor rather than check the elevator’s motor. After two days, the elevator is now back in service and the famous little kitteh didn’t burn up cos you know TW wouldn’t have been able to get me into the PTU.

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