April Fool

I believe it was 1984, but I’m not certain it was.  It was April first, I am certain of that.  We were lounging around on a Sunday morning shortly after finishing breakfast.  Our antique wood-burning cook stove which we used for kitchen heat all winter was burning softly on a reasonably mild day.  I was standing near it warming my backside while my wife sat at the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper.  My two younger children ages 12 and 16 were there also.

Suddenly my wife Nora said, “I smell something burning!”

Although my odor detection ability is not as good as most peoples, I said, “Look, I wasn’t born yesterday.  I know it is April Fool’s Day, and I don’t smell anything.”

All was quiet for a minute or two as we continued our activities as little as they were.  My wife spoke again, “I can smell something burning.”

Detecting the rising panic in her tone, I decided this was no apparent joke.  My son Carl spoke, “Dad I smell something hot too.”

Immediately suspecting the cook stove area I looked upward to see a wisp of smoke near the stove pipe at the ceiling level.  I grabbed a dish off the breakfast table, filled it with water, and threw it up at the smoky area.  At the same time I asked Carl to run upstairs and check the pipe area from above.  I continued to toss bowlfuls of water at the smoke around the pipe near the ceiling.

Carl hollered down that he had found a small rubber toy touching the hot pipe.  He moved it away, and watched it carefully as it cooled, before bringing it down the stairs.  The excitement was all over, and soon we calmed down, but none of us ever forgot the April Fool’s joke that wasn’t.