Further Adventures in the Series: My Life as an Action Movie

Okay, what is it with fire and smoke and explosions and CHEMICAL INHALATION and things that seems to be following me around over the last few months?

ME: *watching the latest Sarah Jane Adventures working on a project*
DOWNSTAIRS: OMINOUS CRASH/BANG/SHRIEK
ME: If I ignore this, surely it'll go away?
DOWNSTAIRS: MORE OMINOUS SILENCE
DOOR: STILL MORE OMINOUS TIMID KNOCK
ROOMMATE: *rushes in and slams the door behind her* Hey!
ME: Um. Hey?
ROOMMATE: Say. You wouldn't happen to know... do we have any gas masks in the house?
ME: I... don't think that's ever come up.
ROOMMATE: Oh. *beat* Do you know the number for poison control?

So here is the thing: roommate was heating one of those reheatable crystal thingies that you just boil for "at least ten minutes" and then you're nice and warm and yay. Since she wanted to be nice and toasty, she decided that fifteen minutes was well within the "at least ten minutes" quoted on the little container. Which is a reasonable assumption!

So she set the timer for fifteen minutes, then went downstairs to find a bubbling cauldron of black and HUGE BILLOWING SMOKE and TOXIC FUMES and it rapidly spread throughout the house.

I burst out laughing. This is how I deal with stress. And then I made us both go and get wet washcloths and hold them over our mouths and noses before we ventured downstairs. It was like in those fire safety movies - it was almost impossible to see anything, so we stayed low to the ground and stumbled to the door. We cleared things up/ventilated the house as best we could (I recommended that we pour some water over the now-solid bubbly black mass in the pot so that there wouldn't be any more dust to get into the air and then into our respiratory tracts) and we made for the basement, where the air was still clear.

And then we did research! Turns out the crystals were probably sodium acetate (there was a strong vinegar-like smell in the air), which is a mild irritant in small doses. So yay! Coughing and a sore throat, just in time for my presentation tomorrow!

Nah. It could've been way worse. And anyway, fun times! No more 'sploding vans in sight - I was starting to get worried.

The ironic thing? Sarah Jane had just finished voiceovering something to the effect that you can have adventures right here on Earth, too! Thanks, SJS. At least, owing to all the sodium acetate in the air, my house is now Slitheen-proof.

EDIT: Oh, flippedydoodle. I didn't even think about our hyper-involved and paranoid landlords (the main reason I'm looking for a new place in January). There could be fireworks here. And flippin' politics. *grumbles*

ALSO EDIT: Dude. You can use sodium acetate to waterproof concrete. How sweet is that?