8:00 - No whiff of gas... Lizard call from slumber party seeking permission to break the iron-clad rule of no sleepovers. "JUST GIVE ME A CHANCE!!!" After a series of NO, she hangs up on me. I return to the Sugar Bowl.
9:30 - The Boss returns from the final estrogen celebration of her birth-week. The scent of gas within the house remains absent.
10:27 - Boss walks out the door to pick up the Lizard from the slumber party and is struck in the face by GAS STORM.
10:31 - Lizard calls, wondering where her ride is. I tell her that GAS STORM IS UPON US.
10:32 - Boss calls Xcel explaining the scent is formidable outside our house. I can't smell anything on the inside. Paranoid operator (doing her job) tells us to get the children out of the house and not to turn any lights on or off. Garage door may not be closed and the car cannot be started. I get our anxiety plagued daughter out of bed saying we are going to a "surprise" party. She says I am full of hot air.
10:35 - Since our house is clearly not safe from GAS STORM, we walk two houses over to our neighbors and stay there while the fire trucks are dispatched to investigate. --- It sure is a good thing we hauled our kids out of bed to go next door and wait out the storm that threatened the whole neighborhood.
10:37 - Boss calls Lizard and tells her that thanks to GAS STORM she must stay at the slumber party. Abe Lincoln sheds tears and 12 years of solidarity explode from GAS STORM'S fury.
10:40 - Despite my enjoyable banter with the neighbors, I become convinced the only reason we are there is my wife assumes I am either the cause of GAS STORM or my neighbor is handy and can keep our family safe since I am incapable of dealing with such a calamity. My sense of self worth erodes by the minute despite my genial mask and dark comments about how nice it would be to die in one's sleep or all together as a family. SERIOUSLY. There are much worse ways to die.
10:49 - Fire trucks arrive... at the neighbors house, not mine. I guess being handy ensures you are the first to get protection from GAS STORM.
10:55 - Firemen declare the area safe from the fumes, although they eye me suspiciously...
11:07 - We return to our suspect domicile and the Littles commence flipping out at the 2nd bedtime in less than 4 hours. I may no longer smell the fumes, but the lingering after effects of the storm have just begun.
SO LET IT BE KNOWN THAT EACH YEAR ON JANUARY 2ND, I SHALL BRING IN THE NEW YEAR BY REMEMBERING GAS STORM. We will have a slumber party on January 2nd and only our family will be invited... or we'll just go to the neighbors.