Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The Smell of Burnt Toast Before A Stroke

This morning the smell of burnt toast suddenly started permeating around everyone in the office. Knowing that we didn't have a toaster on this floor there was concern that there was an electrical fault somewhere and we were only 4 minutes away from being engulfed in an inferno. It then went from burnt toast to gas leak in one Chicken Little leap.

I gave the Handyman a call to ask if he could pop over to take a look at the fuse box. At least 5 then of us spent the next 10 minutes sniffing around various parts of the office for the source of the smell. Prime suspects were the coffee machine and the hot water cylinder. The gas leak chick was concerned it was the air conditioning and switched off all the (electrical!) units.

After 10 minutes I started to get a little bored with the exercise and went back to work, figuring I could pack up my stuff and grab my lappie before the nasty ass smell turned into an unstoppable flow of liquid hot magma.

Two others kept on the hunt for the burning sensation for a good 10 minutes but couldn't find the source. The Handyman, perplexed, went downstairs to check their fusebox. He came back 2 minutes later with an announcement:

Someone downstairs had burnt their toast.

4 comments:

Becky said...

great story, I love it!

~Tim said...

Why do we so often miss the obvious explanations?

Meredith said...

It beats me...Although when I realised the giant waste of resources that had occured as a result of the great burnt toast hunt, I think I might have actually HAD a small stroke. So in a way it was an extremely circular warning sign of an impending Cardio Vascular Accident (similar to that scene with Neo and the vase in the Orale's kitchen in The Matrix)

Meredith said...

What??!! In like the bunk bed above you? Oh god....ew...!!