No Bark, No Bite, No Problem

It was nearly 30 years ago and I was bringing dinner to my (then) boyfriend (now husband).  My parents were out of town and I was dog sitting my childhood pet, a wonderful male toy french poodle named Pepi (short for Pierre), so I brought him along for the ride.  Pepi loved going for rides in the car and it was time to introduce him to the young man I was dating.

Pepi, the coolest poodle on the planet

While I was just starting to experience life, Pepi, at 17 years old, was experiencing his twilight years.  Every time I looked at him, I didn't see the aging pooch with silvered fur.  I saw a cute little black ball of fluffy puppy fur who could perform circus tricks, who loved sticking his head out of the car window on road trips, and who slept next to me at night and was my protector.

Yes, it was time for Pepi to meet my boyfriend.

Because my boyfriend only had 30 minutes for dinner, I would bring his meal to him and we would eat in the car together.  This night's meal was grabbed after picking up the dog, so it was a Wendy's cheeseburger and fries, both of which were Pepi's favorites.

Keeping the dog's head from burrowing into the bag and gnoshing on the french fries wasn't so difficult since he was captivated by the drive down the highway.  He even waited patiently for my boyfriend to walk out to the car and to be introduced.

My boyfriend took a liking to the dog immediately.......... but apparently the feeling was not mutual.  Maybe it was because my boyfriend wasn't sharing his fries or a tiny bite of meat from his burger.  Pepi became perturbed enough he started to make his presence known.

It started out as a cough here and there from the dog.  Within a minute or two, the little cough turned into the sound of the dog coughing up his toenails.  As the coughs became more and more gross sounding, we noticed they were perfectly timed with my boyfriend's bites of the burger or fries.

"Geez!  Is the dog ok?", he asked after being grossed out by a particularly nasty coughing fit from the dog.

The tone of that question was not lost on the dog.  It apparently irritated him that this man was usurping his time with me, and he wasn't willing to share his fries either.  The dog decided it was time to launch a full assault.

Within seconds the aroma in the car took on a much more pungent scent.  As I quickly rolled down the windows, my boyfriend gave me a questioning look.

I smiled as I said "it was the dog."

"Yeah, right.", he replied.

Just as I was about to deny that the source of the smell came from me, the dog coughed and quite loudly passed gas.

"Oh my GOSH! What have you been feeding that dog?!" he cried as he hopped out of the car in search of fresh air.

Between fits of laughter and with tears running down my face, I reminded him of how old the dog was.

"Are you sure he's not dead already.  From the smell of things I think your parents had him stuffed and filled with robotics to make it look and sound like he's still alive." he asked.

After the aired had cleared a bit, he got back in the car and finished eating.  With his lunch break over, he leaned over to give me a kiss before he got out of the car.  The dog gave him one last parting shot with a particularly gross cough as he simultaneously passed gas.

"Dear lord!  I can actually taste that one!" he yelled as he scrambled for the door handle.

Laughing hysterically again, I called out to him "I don't think the dog likes you because you wouldn't share your fries........."

"I will make sure to buy him his own order next time so I can breathe." he said.

After I got home and settled for the night, my sweet little dog snuggled up next to me, just like when I was younger.  About that is when I had a realization: the dog had not coughed or passed gas once since my boyfriend got out of the car.  With that I laughed myself to sleep.

Pepi may have been too old to back full grown man up in a corner in a show of protection, but he figured out a way to get him out of the car faster than a speeding bullet.  He was one very cool dog and friend.

The Miraculous Intervention

Happy New Year!  After encouragement from both friends and family, I have decided to share a very personal experience to start off the new year.

Our home in Alabama

It was Halloween 2001. I was 7 months pregnant with our son and we had moved to Alabama a couple of months prior. The evening of Halloween, we went to a friend's house for a costume party. As we were walking in to our friend's home, we noticed that a weather front had moved in and the usual warm, humid Alabama night was turning unusually cold.

We were having a great time at the party until I started having a hard time with acid reflux due to my pregnancy.  We left the party and arrived home around midnight. 

When we relocated to Alabama, we purchased a newly constructed home and had the home inspected for defects prior to closing.  The inspection report had come back with a few very minor issues, which the builder quickly rectified.

When we walked in the door to our home that evening, my husband found the house a bit chilly.  He asked me to turn on the home's heat while he went and tried to remove the black and white paint from his face and hands, where we had transformed him into a skeleton for the party.

While he took a shower to remove the paint, I went and laid down on the sofa in the family room with our dog.

Pregnancy induced acid reflux required me to sleep sitting nearly upright while cool air helped to calm some of the nausea I experienced.  I put an oscillating fan next to the couch, where it would blow the air straight where I was reclining and cranked it up to hurricane force.

Exhausted from both the reflux and being pregnant with a child who was either going to be a world-class soccer player or a renowned kicker for the NFL, I drifted off to sleep within a minute or two.  A little while later my clean faced husband came in, checked on me and went off to bed.

I fell back to sleep almost instantly.  I was in a deep sleep when I started to hear someone speaking to me in a very sweet feminine and quiet voice.  "Wake up, Christie.", she said ever so gently.

In my sleep, I ignored the voice.  But the soft voice continued to gently nudge me "Honey, wake up.  It's time to wake up.".

I recognized the voice.  It was the voice of my father's mother, who had passed 20 years before.  She had been a slip of a woman with a soft voice and a gentle, nurturing, Christ-like nature.

In my sleep I argued with her.  "No, I'm tired.  I don't want to wake up.  This baby is wearing me out and I'm finally getting some sleep.  I'm not going to wake up.  I'm going to sleep.".

She again spoke ever so softly while gently nagging me, "Honey, you need to wake up.  Please wake up.".

I said again "No, I'm tired.  I need sleep.  Please stop and leave me alo.....".

And before I could finish my sentence "CHRISTIE LYNN!  You wake up NOW!!".

There was no mistaking the voice yelling at me!  That was my other grandmother, my mother's mother who had passed away just over a year prior.  She may have been diminutive in height, but she made up for it in attitude.  My red hair came from her and you did not mess with her.  It was also in that moment when I realized all 4 of my grandparents were in my dream although my grandfathers didn't speak, I could feel their presence.

At my grandmother's yelled command, I woke up in an instant.  I was immediately bombarded with the rotten egg smell of natural gas.  I hopped off the couch and ran to my bedroom to wake up my husband.

With a lot of nudging and jiggling, he woke up.  I told him the house smelled like natural gas.  He sat up on the side of the bed and told me to turn off the heater at the thermostat.  I flew to the thermostat and before I could flip the switch to the "off" position, a thought popped into my head that if the thermostat threw a spark, we could be blown sky high.

I decided against flipping the switch and ran back to our bedroom where I discovered my husband was again fast asleep.  I pushed and nudged him to wake him up.  He didn't move.  Scared that carbon monoxide may be poisoning him, I shook him very hard to wake him up.

He woke up just enough to tell me to call the fire department.  I told him to get up and put some street clothes on while I made the call.

I quickly walked to the kitchen's cordless wall phone.  As I reached for the phone to dial 911, my hand was physically stopped by an unseen force, while in that same instant my entire sight was filled with a movie-like vision of a house exploding.

I dropped my hand and backed away from the phone.  That's when I saw my purse sitting on the counter.  I can use my cell phone!

I grabbed my cell phone from my purse but before I flipped it open to dial, something stopped me.  I looked up and saw the door to our backyard and the thought came to me that it would be safer to make the call outside in the fresh (albeit cold) air.

I called 911 and told the operator I wasn't sure if this qualified as an emergency but that our house smelled like gas after having turned on the heater.  She asked if I wanted her to send the fire department and I hemmed and hawed around for a few seconds until she urged me to give her our home address and to let the firemen check things out.

I agreed, gave her the information, and realized my husband was still inside the house.  I quickly went back inside and discovered him back under the covers in bed.  I jiggled, I nudged, and I started pushing him so hard he was bouncing on the bed.  He was not waking up and my heart was in my throat.

I leaned down and literally screamed in his ear (much like my grandmother had done to me just a few minutes earlier) to wake up.  He woke up just enough that I was able to get him to sit up on the side of the bed and helped him put on some sweats and sneakers.  I told him the fire department was on their way and we needed to get out of the house.

Just as I finished tying his shoe, the fire truck was coming down the street with their lights and siren going.

My husband looked at me quite puzzled and it became apparent he wasn't coherent.  He'd only had a couple of beers at the party, so I knew this wasn't alcohol related and yet I couldn't get him up off the bed.  Every time I'd get him sitting up, he'd start to pass back out.

Not being able to get him up, I ran out front to meet the fire engine.  They were greeted by a disheveled pregnant woman running toward the fire engine.  The doors of the cab opened and firemen were stepping out as soon as the engine had come to a complete stop. 

Without even thinking I said "The house is filled with gas.  I flipped the thermostat to heat and something must've gone wrong!  I can't get my husband up and out of the house!".

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the firemen asked where my husband was located in the house.  In the blink of an eye they were inside our home.  Within seconds they'd helped my husband out of the house and had him sitting on the curb as the rest of the crew flung open the windows to our house.

In the cold early morning air, my husband began to "awaken".  The firemen asked if we wanted an ambulance, but my husband declined.  They advised for both of us to call our doctor, as well as my obstetrician and let them know what happened.

Once the gas had cleared and the house was deemed safe, we were allowed to go back in.  The fire deparment had turned our thermostat off and we were told to leave the windows open so the gas could continue to escape over the course of the next few hours.

Around 4am the firemen left and I located our builder's phone number and left him a voicemail on his cell phone describing what had just transpired.  He called us back around 7am to inform us his ac/heating contractor was on his way and would be arriving at our house shortly.

Knowing that my mom's family had a very large presence in Alabama and word of this incident could make it back to them faster than the speed of light, I called my parents as soon as I got off the phone with the builder.  My dad picked up the phone after the first ring.

"Good morning dad.", I said.

"Are you alright?!  Is everything ok?!" were the first words out of his mouth.

I never call my parents at 7am, so I was sure it had freaked him out to get a call from me this early.

"We're ok.  We're fine.  We had an incident early this morning but like I said, we're ok."

"I knew something happened." he said.

"What do you mean?  How did you know?" I questioned.

"I woke up a little before 3am and immediately heard the Holy Spirit telling me to get on my knees and start praying for you both.  I was told to pray without ceasing because you were in grave danger." he replied.

When he told me that, I started crying and told him everything that had transpired, including what (or maybe I should say "who") had awakened me.  I told him I thought it was weird that while my grandfathers didn't speak, I knew they were there.

My dad told me he had been awakened from a very deep sleep around 2:30am and was hit with the prompting to pray.  Because it was the middle of the night and my mom was asleep, dad went into his closet (which is quite a sizable space), got on his knees and prayed until sometime after 6am when he felt the pressure to pray ease up and he fell into an exhausted slumber on the floor of their closet.

He woke up on the closet floor and was getting back into bed a few minutes prior to my phone call.  I thanked him profusely for praying for us because we had been in a bad situation and needed those prayers of protection.

When the ac/heating contractor arrived, we explained what happened and he immediately called the gas company and had them come out and shut off the gas to the house before he would check the system out.

He and the gas company's serviceman climbed into the attic together.  "Holy <bleep>!" they both exclaimed as soon as the front panel to the furnace had been removed.  Next thing we heard were the sounds of photos being taken and more exclamations of "Oh my God! How the <bleep> did this house not explode!".

The two men came down from the attic with looks of utter shock on their faces.  The contractor told us there was absolutely no explanation as to why our house had not exploded, along with at least half of our street.

The gas had poured into our house for 3 straight hours prior to me waking up. Our gas water heater sat next to the furnace and since my husband had taken a shower, the flame on the water heater would have come on at some point to reheat water as it refilled the water heater.

The water heater's flame should also have come on by itself to keep the water at a warm temperature sometime in those 3+ hours the gas was flowing in unchecked.  The flame should have ignited the gas and caused our home to explode, killing us and taking out a number of our neighbor's homes around us.

We were told the system had either been shipped missing a crucial part or it had been tampered with.  Either way, it should have spelled our death.

The contractor had to go out to his truck to get a replacement for the missing part and told us he was going to notify the builder and the city inspector of what he'd found.  We agreed that it was a good idea to make those calls.

One thing we knew with 100% certainty.  While our home inspector said he had checked the furnace, the system had never been inspected because it had never been initially fired up.  Our home inspector had taken a shortcut and lied about it and he very nearly cost us our lives.

The ac/heating contractor came back inside and told us that he'd spoken to both the builder and the city inspector and they wanted to know if it would be ok for them to come out the next morning so he could show them what he'd found.  He also asked if it would be ok if they brought some people with them to look at the system.  We agreed and the contractor went to work getting our system up and running.

My husband and I both went to the doctor that day and were checked out.  The doctor performed several tests and felt like my body had filtered out most of the bad stuff I had inhaled and our baby would just be sleepy for a day or two.

My husband also had some tests performed and was found to have no lingering toxins in his blood stream and was allowed to go home if he agreed to rest quietly for the remainder of the day.

I called my parents as soon as we got back from our doctor appointments to let them know we were officially ok.  My parents told me they had emailed their church pastor and he wanted to know if I would be willing to email him a detailed accounting of what had transpired so he could use it Sunday for his sermon celebrating All Saints' Day.  I agreed and sent the pastor an email detailing everything.

The next morning at precisely 9am, the ac/heating contractor showed up, along with an entourage.  The builder was present along with the city inspector, and they both had brought along additional people.

Included in this large group were city council members, the fire department's inspector, a technician and the head of quality control for the renowned manufacturer of our ac/heating system, the owner of the ac/heating contractor, the gas company, as well as a number of other people.  My family room was packed full of southern gentlemen trying to get answers.

The ac/heating contractor who had come out the day before took the men up into our attic in small groups and explained in detail what he'd found upon opening up the system.

Every single one of these gentlemen came back down from the attic in shock and disbelief.  With heavy southern drawls, they all said that we are living miracles and it was only by God's grace that our incident hadn't killed a whole lot of families and left a sizable hole in the ground where our house stood.

That Sunday, All Saints' Day, our story was shared with several thousand parishioners in attendance at all of my parents' Sunday church services, as well as with those who listened to the podcast in the days, weeks, months, and years afterwards.

It's been 13 years since that fateful night.  In those years, I have heard of a number of homes and people who have suffered or been lost due to incidents like we experienced.  Every time I hear about one of these incidents, part of me quakes in fear and the other part of me rejoices in how God worked so visibly in our life.

Every year when it's time to flip the thermostat from a/c to heat, I still pause to pray before I flip that switch.  I hold my breath until I hear the system's flame ignite and start burning the gas and I pay close attention to our carbon monoxide detectors.

In the years since this happened, I have questioned more times than I can count why we lived when so many others have perished.  I still don't have answers to my questions.  

One thing my family does know for sure is God is real, he is present, and he still does work miracles.  We are living examples of his miraculous works, his grace, and his love.

Written by Christie Bielss

What A Gas

Our much anticipated summer vacation had finally arrived.  The kids woke up on the first gentle nudge and excitedly sped through their morning routines in an effort to get out the door early.  As I was trying to put the last toiletry items in mine and my children's luggage, my husband was cutting his hair .......... while his suitcase sat on the bed just as empty as it had been the night before.  Typical.  He always packs at the last minute and always ends up forgetting something.  Heck, one year he forgot to pack any pants.  Yep, takes the phrase "going Commando" to a whole new level.

We ended up leaving an hour and half later than I had planned, but it was vacation and we were driving, so our schedule was flexible.  As we were leaving town, we went through the McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast.  My husband ordered his favorite:  sausage biscuits, while the rest of us ate syrup-less hotcakes.  That's right.  We had pancakes without syrup because I don't want sticky gunk all over my car.

My family happily gnoshed on their breakfast while I put the pedal to the metal and tried to make up for lost time due to my husband's primping.  We were about an hour down the road when our senses were assaulted by the smell of a skunk.  We didn't see it, but we sure could smell it.  We rolled the windows down and quickly aired out the car.  I felt sorry for whoever hit that skunk because their car probably had to be fumigated to get rid of that stench.

We continued blazing a trail down the highway barreling towards Amarillo, TX for our lunch break/refueling destination.  When we arrived in Amarillo, we stopped at a truck stop that also had several fast food restaurant choices inside.  The family chose Burger King and while I'd have rather eaten the tail end out of that skunk we'd smelled than something from Burger King, I sucked it up and ordered something that resembled chicken.  My family chose to go with cheeseburgers, fries, and a free ice cream cone.

Little did I know when they chose their lunch at that truck stop, we would be fueling more than the car's gas tank.  We hit the road and cheered when we crossed the Texas/New Mexico state line.  It wasn't long after that border crossing when we started encountering some strange aromas.  There was the older pickup truck in front of us that was emitting an odd smell, an open field where, from the rotten egg smell, someone must've hit a natural gas line while drilling.  We were also certain we drove past either a cattle auction yard or dairy farm due to the overwhelming smell of fresh manure.

This trip was definitely having a very negative effect on my olfactory senses.  We stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico to check out an extinct volcano and stretch our legs for a few minutes before braving the mountain passes through Raton, NM and Trinidad, CO.  I used the break to breathe in some fresh mountain air and settle my senses down a bit.

As we headed down the highway I was again assaulted by odors, but this time it became quite apparent what the source was............ and he was sitting right beside me.  I asked him ever so sweetly and discreetly "Ummm honey?  Did you do that?".  He busted out laughing so hard he was crying and managed to squeak out the words:  skunk, truck smell, cow manure, and natural gas. 

Apparently I hadn't smelled any of those things, I had been smelling his emissions.  As he was cackling like a hyena and I was grumbling about how courtesy dictates at least rolling down a window, we were both hit with the motherload of stench.

"Oh good heavens!" I yelled.  I looked over at my husband ready to tie him to the roof of the car when I noticed that he was clawing at the window trying to get it to roll down faster so he could stick his head out and get a breath of fresh air.  As I put my hand over my nose and mouth in an effort to breathe in air less odiferous, I hear a very quiet and polite "pardon me" and then another voice said "excuse me".  Great.  Now 3 people were battling each other with chemical warfare and I was stuck in the car with them.

Yep.  My great idea of hitting some fast food joints so we could make better time on the road had just backfired........... literally.  I was trapped in the car for another 4 hours with 3 people who were emitting toxic fumes.  Between my eyes watering and nose burning, I was pretty sure I'd been hit with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb or sarin nerve gas. 

By the time we made it to our hotel in Colorado Springs to spend the night, their three tummies had finally calmed down.  Burger King and McDonald's sausage biscuits were permanently banned from their diets for the remainder of the trip.  There was one upside to the whole situation.  Apparently when you have a green haze surrounding your vehicle, it does seem to deter tailgaters or anyone from trying to pass your vehicle on the road.

by: Christie Bielss

Invasion of the Fire Ants

Courtesy of Microsoft Clip Art

Back in the early days of our marriage, Mike and I were in our first house and had decided instead of having children, we would try out our parenting skills on a puppy.  We figured that if we messed up with a dog he's either retrainable or we'd only have to put up with our "bad parenting" for a finite number of years.  We were trying to potty train our tiny little fur-baby but every time he'd go outside, he'd  get bitten by fire ants.  This was severely thwarting our efforts.  And, because we would go outside with him, we would also become the unlucky recipients of those nasty little bites.

For those of you who've never been introduced to fire ants, they are mean, nasty little ants who are intent upon killing every living thing  and taking over Planet Earth with their giant ant colonies.  Hollywood could make a good scary movie casting these ants as the villains, although the cast and crew would need extra hazard pay because getting a single bite from one will create a scratching, burning frenzy of pain.

Determined to be good "parents" to our fur-baby, we tried every chemical in the home improvement stores to eradicate the dastardly little villains.  We were having no luck.  All they would do is move their mound 3 feet over.  Finally, after our yard had so many mounds it was looking like a low-income housing project, we tried treating the whole yard at once.  Victory!  The ants moved on.......but only next door to the neighbor's house, where they made new friends, hung out and partied together and created an even larger colony.

When the chemicals in our yard lost some of their effectiveness, those partying ants moved back into our yard and brought all of their new mooching friends with them.  There were so many ants going every which way in our yard it was like the toga party scene from the movie "Animal House".

Mike talked with some of his buddies about the best way to rid our yard of these invaders and, using their advice, he decided on a plan of action.  He didn't say much to me about what the plan was except that he found a new "chemical" mixture he was going to try.

One day while I was busy inside the house, Mike implemented his plan, which consisted of thoroughly dousing the biggest mound with gas.  He took great care to get the gas spread all the way to the edge of the mound and then set the gas can a couple of feet away from the mound.  Ever so carefully, he lit the mound on fire.

Through the living room window, the giant flash of the gas igniting caught my eye.  Within seconds the mound was engulfed in flames.  I watched as my husband chortled in glee and danced a little victory jig as the ant mound sparkled like fireworks.  As he celebrated, the fire grew larger, engulfing the entire mound .......... and then he noticed a problem.  When he'd set the gas can down, he'd inadvertently left a trail of gas from the mound to the can.  His chortling and dancing turned to a loud exclamation of fear and a dance of panic as he watched the fire move quickly from the fire ant mound, down the path of gas and hop right into the gas can. 

Without even stopping to think, he picked up the can and flung it with all of his strength toward the concrete culvert behind our house.  As the gas can was flying over the fence and through the air, it exploded in a giant fireball over the culvert.  Thankfully it hadn't exploded when he'd picked it up and nothing caught on fire.  The explosion did bring out all the neighborhood kids as they excitedly asked one another who had the matches.  Mike quickly ducked down before they could see him and turned back to our yard as though nothing had happened.

I stepped into the backyard as Mike grabbed the garden hose to put out the fire that was quickly spreading to the surrounding grass. Trying to think of the right way to ask what he was thinking, which didn't involve the use of words like "idiot", "moron", and "hair-brained", I peered down at the mound.  Hundreds of worker ants were already crawling out of the mound and rebuilding the damage that had been done to their home.  Mike looked up at me and said with a tone of defeat, "Well..... that didn't exactly go as planned.".   I said "Ummm, yeah.....I think you're gonna need a new gas can........ and better pest control advice.".

 

by: Christie Bielss

Old Men and Walmart

Grocery shopping at Walmart is a different experience every time I shop there.  From oddly clothed people, to people doing things they wouldn't do in any other store, to experiences you won't get at Central Market, Walmart really delivers on a vast assortment of experiences which would make Miss Manners faint. 

There weren't many people at this particular Walmart location except for a contingent of older folks from the local assisted living center.  When I walked through the doors, most had already completed their shopping and were waiting on their bus to return to pick them up.

I was happily shopping in the peace and quiet while enjoying seeing next to no one in the store.  As I started to head down the breakfast foods aisle an older man was at the far end making his way quickly toward me.  He was moving at a pretty quick pace and was obviously in quite a hurry.

He passed by me right as I was about halfway down the aisle........and then, it hit me. The smell.............. oh dear Lord, the smell. He'd either poo'd in his pants or he was so old he was rotting. 

The oxygen was quickly being sucked out of my lungs as I looked for the quickest exit.  Unfortunately, I was smack dab in the middle of the aisle with no quick escape. With the remaining oxygen I had left, I pushed my cart as hard as I could and sprinted down the aisle for safety.

Just as I made it to the end of the aisle, I nearly plowed into a couple with a small child who had just turned the corner. With tears running down my face and my lungs ready to burst, I only had enough breath to say these 4 words "old man passed gas! Save yourselves!". 

My self-preservation instinct had kicked into high gear and prevented me from stopping to see if they understood me.  As I rounded the corner and started sucking in sweet air free of horrific and toxic fumes, I could hear coughing, gagging and a small child's pitiful cries....... 

I returned a little while later to that aisle to check and see if the Walmart personnel had removed their bodies.......

by: Christie Bielss