Hi...

Thank you so much for your response. I got teary eyed by the end, because this was really reassuring to read... I think I get somewhat freaked out by home-type "incidents", partly because they're difficult and scary, but also because being alone in handling them is... I think the being alone part is the trigger. I remember last year, e had a bit of a comical situation in my house, where the roof was flooded, because the pipes hadn't been cleaned (we had just moved in) and the water was trickling in through the electricity sockets. I laugh about it now, and valorise the plumber who came and manfully fixed the thing, but my heart was in my throat the whole time.

I live in India, and we have these gas cylinders:

They have a knob which can be turned off, and most people seem to do that. In my house somehow this never happened, or if it did I never knew about it.. so when I moved here, I learned how to do that, though I am very uneasy with the process. But I was too afraid to do it today. The idea of a fire just... scares the crap out of me.

I am really, really grateful in retrospect that I was here when it happened and that nothing terrible happened. I am in the process of moving out, and my boyfriend is out of town - so I could easily have not been here at all, and that could have been a whole other kind of disaster.

Will definitely try to go out and buy a CO detector tomorrow... though I'm not sure they're available in India.

Thank you so much.. I'm mentally kind of clinging to you because your response is very... comforting. And also, makes me feel like less of a baby for calling the man who is taking some space atm. >>;

Hugs to you too *cling*