The other day, my housemate rapped on my door the quick but quite stuccato knock of a person who really wants to get your attention but in a way that's both urgent but polite. When I opened the door he had a bewildered look of a person, who thinks something really bad is happening, somewhere and maybe if he just panicked just a wee bit, it might help.
"Niklas, do you smell that?"
Seeing that I just got up and it was rather early in the morning and my brain is the type that takes two cups of coffee and something short of a mild heart-attack before it really kicks into the higher gears, I kind of just mumbled a "huh what? I dunnowatutalkinbout.."
"Serious, Niklas, do you smell that? I think I smell chlorine." at this point he more or less dragged me out of my room a proceeded to physically point my nose in various directions to see if I could ascertain the scent that was causing him to worry so. Now seeing that he's a rather big man who out-weighs me by a hundred pounds and that I had only just woken up, I kind of just acquiesed and allowed him to waive me around like some sort of rag-doll living gas detector.
Eventually, enough brain cells got into gear to allow me some command of my olfactory senses, and I thought, "Why yes, I do smell chlorine." This thought triggered a memory of a history class a attended years ago concerning World War I and how chlorine gas was sometimes used in the bombs meant to seriously screw up soldiers. This was enough to kick start some more brain cells to recognise that maybe this situation was pretty urgent and required more than morning-zombie-me to resolve.
This was when things really kicked into gear, suddenly me and my house mate began to scoure the house looking for the source of this ominous pong. We checked in the kitchen, up the stairs, all over the place. We even went into the basement with flash light. All the while I couldn't help wonder, why chlorine? What on earth is in our house leaking chlorine gas?
After much searching and panicked stumbling about, we ascertained the scent was strongest just outside my bedroom in front of the bathroom door, which coincidentally was right above the furnace. So we thought, oh my god, maybe its the furnace? If so, then why didn't we smell the chlorine in the basement where the furnace was? So my house-mate Mike whipped out his cell-phone with the idea of calling our land-lord to ask his advice. As the dial tone on Mike's cell ringed, my other house-mate Robyn came out his bedroom, all groggy-eyed and pissed off the all the commotion we were making as he had just came back from working the night shift at post office and was trying to get some much needed sleep.
"Hey guys can you please pipe down a little, I'm trying to sleep!" he grunted at us in his own special pissed off way.
"Robyn, can't you smell that? We got a gas leak!" Both me and Mike chimed at Robyn.
"Gas leak, are you serious? I can't smell anything?" Robyn replied.
A bit take n aback by his non-chalance I responded angrily, "What do you mean you can't smell anything? Can you smell all that chlorine?".
Robyn first looked puzzled, then slowly he started to laugh. His laugh built up from a slow giggle to an out-right, all out, breathless guffaw.
Confused I asked him what's so funny? He then finally answered my question, hiccuping between laughs, that he had cleaned the toilet earlier that morning with bleach. Without saying a word I went back to my room and went back to sleep....
P.S. Furnaces don't run on chlorine...
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