I woke up and looked at the clock, then groaned.
My phone had already rung three times, and I was hoping it was a wrong number.
It suddenly hit me that I was on call this weekend, and it was probably an emergency HVAC repair. I immediately jumped up and called the dispatcher. She told me she had been trying to get in touch with me for half an hour and then gave me the customer’s phone number and address. I called the customer to see what was going on and promised to be there in fifteen minutes. She had awakened when she smelled a strong odor of fuel. At the moment, she was sitting in her car because she was afraid her gas furnace would either blow up, or send out carbon monoxide. Although I would have told her the same thing, I couldn’t imagine her sitting in her car for an hour. It was cold outside, and she wasn’t warm enough. When I got to her house, I still wasn’t ready for work, but I was ready to help someone get back into their house. I turned off the gas, and went downstairs to the furnace. I realized the fuel nozzle had broken and it needed to be replaced. I had to call someone in to clean up the spilled gas, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from going back into the house. I cleaned it up enough so it would be safe to start the furnace running again, but I thought it would be safer to get the gas cleanup crew into the house later that morning. She was going back into the house with a running furnace and I was going home and back to bed.