Adventures before 9 a.m. on a Monday morning...

Our children didn't sleep too well last night. They were freezing. In the 3 months that we have lived in this house, this is the 3rd time our heat has not worked. The first time, the day we moved in, the boiler didn't work. The second time, it was so cold outside that throughout the neighborhood, boiler fluid was "gelling." The third time, sometime last night, we found ourselves shivering again. Jason called maintenance at 6 a.m. and they showed up at 8:00. He checked our boiler and it was out of fuel. He filled it with a few gallons, said that someone would be back before noon to fill the reserve tank, and went on his merry way. When he left and the heat was coming back on I started to smell burning fuel in the house. I called Jason at work to see if this was a problem and he came home to check it out. He, too, smelled it and put in another call to maintenance to make sure everything was okay. The call was very casual...we really weren't that worried...we just have to call maintenance for everything and wanted to be sure our family was safe. Jason went back to work and the technician soon showed up. He's a stout little man that has been here before and is the type that makes excuses for everything. He last thing he wants is for any blame to be upon him. He checked the boiler room and came inside and said he didn't smell anything (we had turned the furnace off to be safe) and that if anything was wrong, the smoke detectors would be screaming. He made me look in the boiler room to prove that it was clean. As we were talking, we heard sirens in the distance and he (a little jokingly) asks, "You didn't call the fire department, did you?"
"No!" was my reply.
The sirens were getting louder as they came closer and then stopped right in front of our house. The technician shot me a gaze that said, "You've got to be kidding me!"
I laughed and said, "I swear I did not call them! Look, Max! The fire truck is at our house!"
Max was SO excited. Especially when the firemen came inside our house. (We're all still in jammies, by way!)
"Mom! I think they're real firemen! I think they have fireman hats! I think that's their jacket! I think he has a brown jacket like mud! I think firemen are our friends! They want to go in my room!" He was going on and on and they were chuckling as they tested the gas levels in our house.
After deeming our house safe to live in and filling out all the paper work, our friends the firemen bid farewell. The maintenance man told me, "Don't go calling anyone else!" We closed our doors and began our Monday morning. Here's to an adventurous week!