A short time ago, a smoke detector started going off in a neighboring unit in my condo building. This happens from time to time. One goes off, but it stops in a minute – like a car alarm – when somebody discovers their carelessness in the kitchen and opens a window or two.
This time, it didn’t stop. After a couple of minutes, I got up and put on my shoes, grabbed my phone, and went out. I saw a neighbor woman – whom I’ve noticed has a few small children – going out of the laundry room downstairs. I headed down my stairs and around the building to her condo.
The front door was open, smoke coming from the windows and the living room and kitchen full of it, but no sign of flame. I pounded on the open door, yelling “Hello! Do you need any help!?”
She didn’t. The fire on the stove was out, and I guess the kids were OK. I suggested she get fresh air into the dwelling – open more windows being my point.
Hey, we’ve all done it, left food cooking and become distracted. But like I said, someone is there when the smoke alarm goes off, right? To me, it seems unwise to start dinner and leave the kids while you go off to do laundry. Can I get an Amen on that?
Let’s be careful out there, people. Because, in the words of Randy Hickey:
Being dead is definitely worse than being alive. When you’re dead you can’t do all the cool stuff you can do when you’re alive. You and I, we can do all kinds of cool stuff cuz we’re living, we’re not dead, we’re alive. If we were dead we wouldn’t be able to do all the cool stuff we can do, becuz we’re alive. Dead people can’t do cool stuff. Only people that are alive can do cool stuff, cuz they’re living, and you have to be living to be able to do cool stuff. You have to be alive. Yeah, ‘cept when you’re alive sometimes bad stuff happens too. Like sometimes you can get into a car wreck, or you can have a headache or twist your ankle or even stub your big toe… So being alive is kinda hard too, but I think it’s definitely better than being dead…
Metaphor 