Day Nine. Where There's Smoke...there's MORE SMOKE!

WTF!??

Seems that an electrical short in my bedside lamp last night, followed by the excruciating fire alarm blast this morning just wasn't the end of the drama! While I was innocently writing my BLOG, in the room used for our crappy breakfast (e.g., CBR=crappy breakfast room), I looked up and across the room I saw SMOKE billowing out of the toaster. I'm not talking about wispy, fairy-wing smoke. I mean SMOKE!!!!

A woman was sitting right NEXT to the bloody toaster, but must have been deafened by her FOUR screaming kids. I called out to her; "Are you toasting bread?!!"

In a coma, she mumbled; "No."

She didn't even get up or do a thing, so I walked across the room and flipped up the switch on the toaster, revealing two very charred english muffin remains.

Meanwhile, the plume of smoke had hit the ceiling and was quickly spreading across the room. I left to tell the clerk at the Front Desk that there was a possible problem and he joined me, saying he used to be a volunteer fireman in southern Iowa.

He got the doors propped open to relieve the smoke, then marveled that the alarm didn't even go off and this morning, the smoke was much less AND it came from the SAME TOASTER.

Needless to say, the toaster is off to the toaster graveyard and has been replaced. Tomorrow we will have shiny new toast!

Oh my GOD. I'm excited that "WE" got a new toaster...oh no...AND..they installed a T-1 in the hotel today, too. Huh.

Maybe I'll stay in Des Moines a few more days?

What the...? I just heard the lamp "bzzzzzzt!" again! Oh shit!