FIRE!!!

Tuesday of this week half of the Weller family was down with tummy troubles including me.  Dave had put the little boys to bed.  I was settling down for the night, and Dave was closing up shop.  Things were getting pretty quiet.  My favorite time of day.  Next thing I know I hear the intercom buzzing.

We have an intercom system in the house, now since we have an upstairs.  I love it!  I always hated yelling across the house for children.  And Ryan loves to call down after his bedtime for this, that and the other.  Tuesday night was no exception.  I pick up and say, "What is it Ryan"?

What I heard set me into a PANIC!!! 

Ryan (alarmingly):  "Fire!" 
Me:  "What"? 
Ryan:  "Fire!".

I run out of the bedroom screaming to Dave, "Ryan says there is a fire upstairs!"  Dave takes off running, 3 or 4 steps at a time.  I follow behind, but not before I had grabbed both fire extinguishers from the laundry room.  As I am running up the stairs I feel heat and smell smoke.  Dave has already arrived in Ryan's room and is frantically looking around.  I am quick behind him.  As I arrive, gasping for air, my asthma has now kicked into full gear, I hear Dave ask Ryan "where is it?"  Ryan points to a bucket on the ground.  We look around.  There is no fire.  We ask again, "where is the fire, Ryan"?    "Not fire", Ryan says, "Spider".  (How amazing is it that a person hears a suggestion and can experience the sensations of it even when it isn't real?  I can't explain why I felt heat and smelled smoke.  Perhaps that was my body's way of preparing myself for the worst.  That alone was an intersting experience.)  Dave looks a little closer.  There was this teeny, tiny spider crawling around on Ryan's bucket on the ground.  Dave goes and gets a tissue to squish it.  I am still gasping and trying to recover from the shock and constriction of my airways.  We scold Ryan, just a little bit, and head back downstairs.

• For those of you who don't know, Ryan not only has a speach impediment, but he also has braces on his teeth which makes speaking clearly even more difficult for him.  Whatever it was that he was trying to say over the intercom sure sounded like "Fire".

Dave and I crawl into bed and bust up laughing.  What a relief!  Who knew a spider could be such a blessing.  I would rather have a spider in my house than a fire.