Easter fiasco 2006

Here's a little story from 2006:

On Easter Sunday Holly and I hosted a little get together at our house for my family and a couple of friends. After doing a peak to floor cleaning the night before, the house looked beautiful and ready for festivities. We started the holiday off by going to a choral service at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in the morning, then got home and began cooking and drinking wine (as is standard operating procedure at our house). We all enjoyed a wonderful meal and decided to continue with our earlier wine endeavor but this time on the front porch.

   About 3 bottles of wine later (It was just before sunset) we notice a smokey smell and for about a minute thought that someone down the street was barbecuing some paint. A few minutes later, when greasy black smoke was billowing out of the front door, we realized that it was us! I ran into the bathroom to see the wicker shelf eyesore above the toilet was engulfed in flames and that we were in fact barbecuing makeup and toiletries along with an acrylic toilet seat and yes... paint! This all compliments of an unattended candle which the door must have knocked over since it opens up into, yes... the wicker shelf. My buddy Trent, being the prepared one that he is, ran to the kitchen, wet two dish towels and handed me one to wear as a kerchief over my nose and mouth. Then the rescue/ firefighting evolution began. Holly handed me a fire extinguisher which I aimed at the fire, squeezed the trigger and emitted about a 3 second burst, then it was empty. Trent went with her to rig up th e garden hose while I went to look for the cat who was relaxing on the bed. Well, she was drooling with little watery green eyes but she seemed nonetheless relaxed showing no urge to flee. I scooped her up and ran to the front yard and handed her to someone so I could go back in and continue to rescue the tarantula and continue putting out the fire. At some point, Holly phoned the fire department while Trent and I put out the fire. The smoke in the house was so thick at this point that you could not see 3 feet in front of you. Somehow, the cat decided she was safer under our bed than outside around all the looky loos and decided to bolt for cover. We had to re-rescue her and put her in Holly's car.

The fire department arrived about 10 minutes after the call, then admonished Trent and I for taking matters into our own hands but we both decided not to tell them that we each have firefighting experience.

After a little Q and A session with the neighbors and gathering up a few things that we could get by on, my brother who works at the Marriott in Cherry Creek, very generously went half with us on the cost of our hotel room.

Now almost 2 weeks later, Holly and I will be out of the house until the beginning of August while repairs are being made to our 1 bathroom house due to smoke damage and a charred but structurally sound and in tact bathroom. The upshot is that we were in the process of remodeling the bathroom and now the brunt of the cost will be picked up by insurance. Big bonus! The downside is that we just finished repainting the kitchen and will have to repaint the entire main floor as well as refinsish the wood flooring throughout the entire house due to some soot being tracked into it.

We are adjusting quite nicely to our 2 bedroom 2 bath flat in Stapleton though and insurance is paying our expenses there as well!

After moving back in in late August we were pleased to find that the movers which our insurance company hired (meth heads for hire?) had either broken or stolen half of our more expensive items.