It was a beautiful night in the neighborhood. A great night for a neighbor … No, Mr. Rogers, it didn’t go as planned, but it was a nice night. It just lasted too long and too late.
It gets dark early in North Texas this time of year, so it was just a little past seven when the neighbor called. She had walked down the street to return a stray cat. As she crossed the alley which runs beside my house, she smelled natural gas.
Now, this wasn’t natural gas like eighth grade boys thrive on. Although the methane gas they love so much is explosive, it is not what was hovering in my alley. I found my shoes, covered up my pajamas, and trekked into the dark.
Of course, no flashlight had enough battery power to reach more than two feet, so I turned on the flashlight on my phone. In the alley, I stepped into a bubble of strong gas … natural gas … Texas shale … potential Blue Flaming … Gas. I know I should at this point remind you that natural gas has no natural smell, unlike that afore mentioned eighth grade gas. The Gas Company puts in the odor so that when we step into a bubble of it in the alley beside our house after dark on a Saturday night, we will know … not to light a match.
After sniffing around my house, my car and the cat owner’s house, we called 9-1-1. There’s always the fear when calling 9-1-1 that it will not be an emergency, and you will shame yourself. However, the nice lady on duty seemed to think it really was an emergency, and said she’d contact the gas company and the fire department.
The firemen arrived in just a few minutes. Three hunks of prized manhood crawled out of a very large firetruck and began to secure the area. They, too, sniffed out the alley for further leaks and possible terrorist threats. We all agreed that the smell was located very close to where the gas line runs under the alley. The gas company was sending someone, but it might take a while. The on-call guy was about thirty miles away … and he’d have to round up some help and equipment. The firemen would stay until they arrived … with the lights flashing, but no siren.
I went inside. Within the hour the troops arrived. Six trucks, one carrying a baby excavator, one with a roll of plastic pipe that would reach into the next county, and enough men to have a lodge meeting. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time, so the talk around the seeping hole was jovial and convivial. That means they told a lot of jokes. They must have.
I offered coffee once, but they assured me they had their own … I wasn’t needed, “ma’am.” Each truck was outfitted with blinking lights, strobe lights that pretty much fluttered in an indistinct pattern, and headlights that were pointed into all the houses nearby. These lights were on and running into the wee hours of the morning while they dug up the line and repaired it. I have thick curtains in my bedroom, but my living pulsed like Billy Bob’s on a Stock-Show-Saturday-Night.
When you are old, and the most exciting thing you’ve had in the neighborhood since last March is a gas leak, you sit back and enjoy it.
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