#my superpower

My Childhood: Carbon Monoxide

My aunt lived several states away with her own family, and we would visit each other a few times a year. In 1999 I was 8 years old and they visited us for a week. That particular day we went out in the evening to eat at a German restaurant that started a fart war between my dad and uncle. I laughed a lot. But when we got home, I noticed a smell I had never smelled before.

It was like sweet gasoline mixed with rusty pennies. Very potent, but no one else in the house smelled it. I am so grateful for my mom, who remembered that I am special, and while the men were making fun of our concern, mom forced everyone out of the house and called the fire department, thinking it may be a natural gas leak. They found high levels of carbon monoxide in the home due to a malfunctioning heater, and said if we had stayed in the house that night we all would have died.

People like to remind me that it is impossible to smell CO, but I don’t listen to them. This was only the FIRST time I saved my family’s lives with this ability to smell CO, so if I ever smell that sweet sticky scent, I pitch a fit until the problem is found. It has ALWAYS been carbon monoxide.