“Should I add more wood to the fire?” I asked.

She responded, “Yes, please!”

I grabbed a log from the near by basket and made my way toward the chimney.

Memories of sitting by the fire with my family quickly ran through my mind.

As I approached the chimney, I froze.

“How do I add the wood?”

There were three levers.

First for the opening and closing of the flue.

Second for the bottom vent to circulate the air.

Third for the main door.

I’m sharing all of this with you after the fact, as in the moment I didn’t know the function of the 1st and 2nd levers.

Let me rephrase that, I was given the instructions, but I forgot them 😂.

To make matters even more complicated, both 1st and 2nd levers had to be facing in the opposite direction.

I proceeded with what I believed to be the way to do this.

I opened the chimney door, not knowing what to expect.

“Whoop”.

A cloud of smoke came out and began making its way up the chimney, followed by the ceiling.

My friend said, “it’ll be fine.”

I had other thoughts.

I immediately rushed to open the back door to avoid what I felt was inevitable.

“Beep, beep, beep.”

Part of me felt embarrassed.

The other part found it quite humorous.

I jumped onto the couch and began unscrewing the smoke detector, as there wasn’t any obvious way to turn it off.

My friend rushed toward the main switch board, which looked exactly like one used by DJs expect in a foreign language 😂.

Moments later, the second 🚨 went off.

This one was much louder.

There was no way anybody was sleeping thru it.

I couldn’t help, but laugh at the whole situation.

As other residents came down the stairs, I decided to proceed with what I do best.

Use my sense of humor to diffuse the situation.

“Nice to meet you all. I guess we were going to meet one way or another.”

They all laughed.

I felt relieved seeing smiles on their faces.

Minutes later, the host came and turned off the alarm.

We shared all of our thoughts with her as all of this was happening.

“What if the fire department comes? How do we explain all of this to them in a language we don’t understand?”