So I'm at work today and because of the pandemic and the state of things there are not many people who show up to the office which I love because I can actually focus and get things done. So I'm just grinding away at my desk and realize it's time to go home. So I pack up my stuff and head to my car and I take the long way home with all the pretty trees. My wife txt's me and say the microwave broke and to grab food on the way home if I want to. So I stop by Trader Joe's and get one of their awesome chicken pesto wraps sooo good! I'm kinda tired from the day and decide to eat in my car and relax for a few minutes and watch everyone honk and flip each other off in the Trader Joe's parking lot. soo relaxing haha.
Once the chaos in the parking lot quiets down I make a break for it and tear ass out of the parking lot before people start going crazy again. I make my way home and even find a parking spot pretty close to my apartment so I don't have to walk the usual 2 blocks back home. I actually enjoy the walk from the car to my place but not tonight I was still feeling the effects of last night's 'gettin a lil high'. gotta say that brand of edibles hit me hard. Usually I just fall asleep and don't feel a thing but these were a little different and kept me up for a while and then they hit real hard and I almost fell into the wall as I was making my way to bed. But I managed to play it cool so my wife didn't know I was high as fuck.
So I walk from my car to my place, open the door and am immediately a little worried. There are large black pieces of ash floating around and the floor in covered in soot. There is water all over the kitchen floor and dark burn marks on the lenlioum floor in the kitchen.... I don't smell smoke so whatever happened did so a while ago. I then remember my wife saying the microwave didn't work so I assumed it may have caught something on fire. I go into the bedroom and my wife says "Don't panic but we had a little fire". I ask if it was from the microwave but then I realize there are a pile of empty grocery bags in the middle of the main room of the apartment. "No I was burning the trash and a bag caught on fire pretty fast so I grabbed it and threw it in the sink and turned the water on it". then I realized her hands had bandages over them. She explained she burned her hands while putting the fire out. Her finger tips were bright red with blisters on them. So I get my things ready to take her to either the ER or immediate medical care. But she said she was feeling a lot better and the swelling was going down.
Now let me take a moment to fill you in with a little context here. My wife has pretty significant wellness issues specifically with throwing garbage out. She likes to collect it and go through it to make sure nothing of value gets thrown away. This isn't really as crazy as it sounds because I've already thrown away $200 in cash and our rent check in the past so double checking the garbage isn't so crazy. What is crazy is that over the past year she has gotten really intense about it and has gone out to the garbage and dragged it back in after I threw it away. Too much to really get into her but lets just say it's been a huge issue and caused a massive amount of stress over the last 2 years.
So tonight it has become apparent that whatever this issue she's having has now crossed into dangerous territory in that she is clearly willing to put herself and others in danger. I have 2 kids living at home who were in their room while this fire was raging 10 feet away from them. They're in high school and have no problem jumping out their bedroom window (we're on the 1st floor) and they do it all the time because they're teenagers and that's what teenagers do. But not only that there are other families in this complex who have no idea what's going on and that the entire complex was about 2 minutes away from being burned down.
So now I'm in the kitchen and other room cleaning everything up. There are trash bags everywhere from all the garbage she was planning on going through. And as I'm cleaning and vacuuming and sweeping and trying not to freak out on my wife my older daughter walks in sees what has happened and grabs my 2 daughters and takes them to her apartment without a word. She lives 15 minutes down the street.
At this point all this kinda hits me as to the enormity of the situation. Like for the first time I realize my wife is actually a danger to other people and she's sitting in the other room with her hands bandaged. Christ! Do I call child services? Do I call the cops? Do I leave? All these things are racing through my head and I'm seeing how the linoleum floor is melted in a few spots. Like this was a legit fire and I'm shocked the neighbors didn't run over and ask what the fuck was going on. So there are I'm frantically cleaning everything and BAM I'm hit with crazy heart issue that I've had for a while. I just went to the cardiologist to get it looked at and he said everything was "good" but to keep the stress way down. Well uhh yeah apartment fires with kids living there is not a good way to keep the stress down. At this point things were pretty cleaned up. I took all the loose garbage and got it into 10 large trash bags and left them in the kitchen. The kids were safe at my daughter's house and the swelling on my wife hands had significantly gone down. But now I was having a pretty big issue with my heart going into A-Fib. Lovely so off to the gym I went but I knew they were closing in an hour so I had to hurry but of course when my heart is all screwy I get light headed (yes, bad) I get to the gym and start doing the elliptical and tracking my heart with my ECG app on my Apple Watch that my wife got me for these situations. and at 1 point my heart was up to 225 BPM and it should have been around 70 BPM. so I hop on the elliptical and go as fast as I can for 2 minutes and my heart snaps back into rhythm. I stand there sweating profusely and the guy next to me is kinda looking at me at how did I get so sweaty in 2 minutes ...ah the magic of Afib! so I stepped off the elliptical and stood there for another 5 minutes to make sure my heart didn't freak out again. Everything is good! So I stammer out of the gym and the guy behind the counter says "have a great night!" and I do everything I can to not flip him the Bird.
And so here I am back home. Things are calm now and my wife looks a little scared and quiet. This is the hard part in life. This is part where I must intervene at all costs. For my kids safety, for my wife's safety and even my own. This is the part where I have to sit down with her and have a big talk. I don't know what direction things are going to take, but I do know this can never happen again. To say we got lucky tonight is an understatement. Now I have to do what I have to do because a dangerous line has been crossed. This is where I have to stand between my wife and my kids to protect everyone involved.
Welp fuck...tomorrow is not going to be fun
