Mystery Theatre

What could have stayed as a private moment of embarrassment was hindered by a spontaneous internal reaction of incredulity displayed on my face in front of my friend.  Had I been able to keep my thoughts off my face, I might have been able to hide my embarrassing moment.  My friend says she wishes that she had a camera available with which to have caught the priceless “you’ve got to be kidding me!! - look on my face when it dawned on me what I had done” moment!!!

As it was – my private moment went from singular knowledge to double knowledge in about 1 second!!  To which I swore her to absolute secrecy … she could not tell anyone on the team!!  She agreed to my terms – and five minutes later, “innocently” but loudly remarked, as we left her kitchen, that I “was responsible to tell her husband”.  Thankfully, said husband was not in the room, her plan was foiled … and my secret was still safe!

By this morning, I decided my embarrassing secret was funny enough to share on facebook.  Because truly – it is funny.  It quickly turned into the popular post of the day – garnishing many comments!  So, I decided – why not make this a blog post?

Because truly again – why should not our embarrassing …. face-in-the-palm …. “I can’t believe I was so stupid” moments be shared with the whole wide world??!?

The Scene:  My Kitchen

The Victim: My brand new gas stove

Yes, at some point Monday, the seemingly innocuous happened.  The gas bottle on my stove depleted.  Fizzled out entirely.  Nada.  No problem – this happens from time to time, as I recall from last term – about every five months! 

My house help actually identified the problem earlier in the day.  But, I got distracted.  And then I completely forgot.  Until about 8pm on Monday night when I was craving tapioca.  It makes a nice dessert … and the leftovers make a lovely breakfast!  So, I entered my kitchen, set my pot on the counter and began to mix the ingredients: milk powder, water, tapioca pearls, sugar, salt, 1 egg.

All set. … Now, just to light the stove and cook tapioca until just slightly off the boiling point.

Turn the knob and strike the match.

and strike the second match.

Oh yeah.  No more gas.

The Culprit: An empty gas bottle …. cut to outside the house

Time of the Crime: 8:30 pm

“Not a problem” I think to myself,  “I know how to do this!!”  I search through all my drawers to find where I stored the multi-size adjustable wrench when I moved in.  It’s oddly not in the tool drawer in the hall cabinet.  I finally find it in the kitchen drawer with the plastic ziplock bags, aluminum foil and saran wrap like stuff.  (It’s not saran wrap.  It’s only “plastic wrap”.  It works decently well – mostly like its counterpart in Canada … and I can buy it here, so it works …. good enough!) 

I’m actually thinking this is an odd drawer for a wrench, but it is by the stove – which is probably why it went there – and now that I’ve found it there once, there it will have to stay … for if I move its location now, I will never find it again!  Maybe I can hang it on a nail by the back door in the pantry???? … Well, thoughts for another day.

I grab the wrench and the keys for the back pantry door are conveniently in the key hole.  I let myself out onto the porch and round the corner to the

Location of the Crime: The Gas Bottle Cage

Thankfully, I had thought ahead to put the key to the cage lock on the key ring with the pantry door key … thinking that I would likely use both of these keys at the same time!  I was quickly into the cage and had the empty bottle detached from the gas line.

My guard helped me exchange the bottles to bring the new bottle closer to the gas line hose … the full bottles are pretty heavy! 

We had to fish the little rubber ring thingy out of the old bottle and into the nozzle on the new bottle.  That little key sure came in handy again!

But, when the rubber ring-y came loose, it pinged off to who knew where??  We heard it ding a gas bottle and then hit a surface with a tiny thunk.  But to no avail did we find it.  Hmm…. did I mention that it is 8:30 at night?? 

Ok, yeah.  So, changing a gas bottle in the dark at 8:30 at night was not my best plan ever!

The rubber ring-y thing is black … and it is black outside – kinda camouflaged!  My guard retrieved his flash light and with some crawling around, he found the rubber ring-y under the gas bottle cage.  We finally got it into the new bottle nozzle and he screwed the gas line hose tight.  I even remembered to check the gas line with water and dish soap to check for leaks!  Quite proud of myself.  I noticed that the – hmmm, what to call this do-hickey? … the odometer of the gas flow measurement tool? ….

…. well, this measurement do-hickey had a plus and minus sign.  Seeing as my gas seems to come into my stove at a fast rate – there is one burner I don’t use, because frankly, it lights with a poof and the small length of a match is too close for my hand!! – I figured that maybe this plus and minus sign with arrows might help slow down the flow of gas to my stove.  So I gave that a tiny twist to the negative … and went inside to light my stove.

Turn the knob and strike the match.

Nothing.

and … strike the second (er – fourth? … but who’s counting?!?) match … and, nothing!

hmmm …. turn the knob – sans match – and stick head near to burner, and, nope – I can detect no beautiful hissing sound of gas flow!

SIGH … what did I do wrong????  I know that it has been two years, but I figure I did it right.  Sigh again – this is a new stove!!  argh.  I text a teammate to help me figure it out in the morning.

And then I look at my pot of milk, eggs and tapioca sitting on my counter.  I really don’t want to throw it out.  It was the last of my milk powder.  And tapioca is really really YUMMY!  So, I text my friend to ask if I can come borrow her stove for five minutes. … yes?? … YAY!!!

I hop in my truck with my pot in my box and drive over to my friend’s house!!  We lit up her stove.  And as we stood there chatting, I stirring my tapioca, we talked about many things.  I mentioned that my guard helped me even screw the nozzle onto the bottle as it was really hard for it to fit on.  I wondered if that is what I did wrong.

And then it hit me …. I forgot to turn the gas bottle from closed to open!!!!!!

OOOPS!!

Did I mention that it had been two years since I’ve changed a gas bottle??!?  We giggled.  We laughed.  I am sure I blushed!  And then – enter all the fore-mentioned embarrassment and failed promises!!  (you know who you are! …. it’s okay, you don’t need to keep your promise anymore! … I told EVERYONE!!)

Some of the comments on my facebook:

1.  Incredulity on the size of my gas bottles.  No …. it is not an 80L gas bottle.  Nor is it jumbo size. 

Answer: my gas bottles last about 5 months. so, I'm calculating 5 months prior to leaving on home assignment in June 2012 ... and then my first gas bottle on my return was hooked up by my teammates who installed my new stove when I moved in to my house in October. So, I figure the last gas bottle I changed out myself was around February 2012 .... scary!!

2. to which another friend posted:  t is wonder you forgot to turn it on. Funny thing as I was reading your post, I was saying, Turn it on!

My question – where we you last night at 8:30pm??!?  ….  He responded ‘here’!! 

…. I had actually thought of calling someone, but I figured I didn't screw the nozzle in correctly and no one could help me over the phone. I completely overestimated my ineptness and underestimated the ability of people to help without seeing it!!

Actually …. considering I haven’t changed out a gas bottle for two years … I shouldn’t be surprised that I missed the most important step …. I’m more surprised I remembered any of the steps at all!