Gas Leak - Con Ed - On It!

Grey's is too good to write this post! Christina! Cally! OMG!

But I could not not tell the world about a gas leak in the stove. Us city folk really forget how to do normal things like call the utility company when we small gas. Instead, we obsess on the landlord's refusal to acknowledge a gas smell and indulge him in his story of how his wife has to smell his cigars for him (the 12 he has a year). We indulge in the super and torture him at 11pm to unplug the gas stove yet again because of a mysterious smell that even he cannot smell. We pull out the Windex to spray all over the stove, searching in vain for little bubbles appearing where there might be a leak. And why would we do that? Because the "Appliance Doctors" sprayed the stove when they came to fix the first faulty gas valve. Yes, "first," as in there was a second valve that went bad (would not turn off, so neighbor burners would light it).

And then we finally call good old Dad, on Mom's phone because he doesn't answer his own, and he tells us to light a match and wave it around. "It's not a big leak!" That's when Mom seizes the phone back and tells us to call the utility company.

Con Ed. They are usually the bad guys. The guys who let Queens be out of power for...a week was it? last summer. But Con Ed. Their number is on the bill. 24/7. And people actually answer the phone, and two guys came over tonight to stick some machine down the throat of the stove I had just taken apart to spray more Windex on, and they dubbed it "defective."

Music to my ears: "Of course we smell gas!" But the machine with the long hose that went down the stove provided the proof. Earlier, if I left the bedroom, where there is a fan creating fresh air, I get in a bad mood. And you don't want me in a bad mood with a broken stove that all the men in my life are denying (except David...for the most part, he is smelling the gas...most of the time...but maybe not absolutely all of the time). When you get too much carbon monoxide in your head, you can get that headache and get irritable. Hungry and poisoned/irritable. Not a good combo!

The stove has gone down in Cod Ed paperwork as defective, and needs to be fixed or replaced (see red tag on gas stove in picture above). If not, the landlord is liable.

Liable. Love that word. When it comes to apartments. Con Ed. They were two more men in my kitchen, but they are my new heroes of the bunch. And good old Mom is the ultimate hero of all. She may throw crazy darts sometimes, but you want her on your side.

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