How I Got The Black Lung

First off I'm writing this while sipping bourbon so just go ahead and be jealous. I got Rob a bottle of Woodford Reserve for Valentine's Day and ladies/gentlemen, I feel like I should be wearing a crested housecoat and smoking a corncob pipe or something. I need a crackling fireplace and hounds by my feet. Chauncey?!! Where are my hounds, Chauncey?!! *Taking a sip to help me simmer down* Awwwww yeah.

So a few of you asked about the housefire we had the other day. Hahahahaha! (Things are always so much funnier on bourbon.) But really, it was a kind of funny story, except for how I got black lung afterwards and Otto got booger-eye for like 3 days.

It went down something like this. Our dryer sucked to begin with and always took 6-8 hours (no joke) to dry a load. So I had had the dryer going for a few hours, Otto was at pre-school, I was in my office & Rob was back in the back of the house in his office and...

So I went back to work. Then maybe an hour passed. Then...

So at some point I decided to take a break from work and investigate the smell. When I stepped out of my office (aka the gloomy batcave) and into the sunlit kitchen I realized the whole house was filled with a haze of smoke and the smell was, well, just bad. So like a genius I opened the (on fire) dryer and this happened...

And that is how I got the black lung (last week). Seriously unfunny side-note: I have the black lung.

Things that are good: Otto was out of the house when this happened and once I shouted, "fire! fire!" Rob sprang into action and we managed to stop the fire (which luckily just meant turning off the dryer) and air the house out. We spent a good day feeling the dryer to make sure it wasn't particularly on fire (or you know, hot, or whatever) and it wasn't. We're thinking this was some kind of electrical fire or something. Anyways, we're moving in a few months so we decided "eff it" we're just going to the laundromat until we move - not fixing or replacing or whatever. So I wrote this note on the dryer just to solidify that it's dead, and just in case some weirdo tries to salvage it from the appliance graveyard where it'll probably end up shortly.

I should have added the skull and crossbones.

ps. Otto is totally fine but he did have boogery eyes for like 3 days afterwards. Poor little guy :( We're thinking there must have been a little smokiness left in the house. He's super-sensitive (he has my grandma's delicate coloring and sensitive skin) but as of today his eyes were totally fine. Thank goodness.

Also in February Laundry News! The washing machine ate one of our pillows. This is like a Stephen King short story, no?

So other than daily neti pot what does one do for the black lung? Also, I'm seriously fine just coping with a case of extreme dry throat and almost-sexy raspy voice.

xo,
Lindsey