By Mark Burkdoll
The Christmas holiday season is officially here. I was remembering a Christmas I spent in San Francisco and thought I would share it. At the time, I had to be in San Francisco during the week, coming home to Clearlake on weekends. My sister, who lived near Golden Gate Park, was gracious enough to let me use a spare bedroom. One day, I overheard my sister and her two roommates talking about getting some wood for the fireplace. I said that as a way of saying thanks for letting me stay there during the week, I would bring wood each Sunday night when I came down from Clearlake. Noting how clean and bare the fireplace was, I asked these city girls if they knew how to use a fireplace. They assured me they did, but even so, I did buy them a grate for the fireplace and a metal bucket for ashes. I had been bringing wood down for several weeks and coming in late Sunday night when the house was dark. This night the only light was coming from the fire in the fireplace and someone was under a blanket in the living room. I went to my room thinking great, they are enjoying the wood I was bringing down. Much later, I was awoken to the sound of my sister”s roommate Theresa saying “Mark! Mark!” In the fog of sleep I thought that was Theresa ? that”s OK, and Mark, that”s me ? that”s OK. Then she said “Do you know how to use a fire extinguisher?” With that I jumped up wide awake. I noticed the room was full of smoke. Theresa slammed the extinguisher into my stomach and pushed me off to the living room. In the living room, there was a pillar of flame, on the carpet between the fireplace and the Christmas tree. I put it out, but before I could try to figure out what happened, the other roommate, Ginger, came out and the two girls started arguing. Listening to them, I finally figured out that one of them had taken cold ashes out of the fireplace but not wanting to get the metal bucket I bought dirty, had placed them in a paper bag on the carpet. Later the other roommate had started taking out hot ashes, saw the paper bag with ashes in them and thought that is where they must go. Next, we heard my sister”s bedroom door open and the roommates suddenly stopped talking, waiting for Sarah to come in demanding to know what”s going on. Instead, she went to the bathroom, then back to bed. Not a word about why the house is full of smoke. The next day I asked her if she was aware of what happened last night. She said she was mad that we woke her up when she had to work in the morning. She had not noticed the smoke, but she had heard Theresa calling my name, but figured it was none of her business.
Mark Burkdoll CLS, M.S. works in the lab at St. Helena Hospital Clearlake.
