How I Almost Committed Suicide By Accident

Yes, I failed, which will disappoint some of you, but I almost killed myself this week. It was a rather simple oversight, but a potentially very deadly one.

I tried cooking last Sunday, which was my first mistake, and I turned on a back burner on the stove, which didn't light, so I smoothly moved on to another burner while completely forgetting to turn off the original back burner. And when did I discover this mistake? Oh, try Tuesday after I came home from work. I walked in to a disgusting smell, which I thought may be gas, but for some reason that thought did not prompt me to check my stove even though I was standing in my small kitchen right next to it. I determined that the smell must have been something that went bad in the upstairs apartment or something, or perhaps my eggs went rotten. Meanwhile, "Jacob" came by to visit and eventually noticed the smell as well. "Did you check your stove?" he asked, and I responded that I tried to cook two days ago and turned on a burner that didn't light, but there's no way that I was dumb enough to leave that burner turned on. But, just to ease our fears, I walked into the kitchen, where I saw...the burner turned on. Full blast. Straight gas filling up my house for the past two days. I turned the knob off and took a seat in the living room, my brain trying to process what I just discovered. "Coulda been a murder-suicide, like Chris Benoit," Jacob said. "Oh well. We can laugh about it now. By the way, I think we should crack some windows."

A short checklist of all the things that could have resulted in my death: Lighting up to take a smoke if I were a smoker, pulling a cord out of the wall in the kitchen and creating a spark, passing out from carbon monoxide poisoning in my sleep Sunday or Monday night, and what would have been the funniest (for someone reading about it in the newspaper), taking an air freshener in an aerosol can into the kitchen and getting rid of that foul smell, which I was a few seconds away from doing. Un-fucking-believable.

I've been physically weak and tired all weekend, which could be just the end of a regular workweek, or it could be effects of the gas I inhaled. I'm feeling a little better as I sit here typing right now, but I'm still a little shaken mentally. I feel like I've been slipping mentally lately, even before this incident. Little things, like forgetting what I went into a room to do, or leaving the house without something important. On this most recent trip to see my fiancee on Valentine's Day, I locked up the house and made it a few doors down the block before I remembered that I should go get my bus ticket, which I kinda need to actually go to Memphis. I'm under some stress to find employment in Memphis and spark a chain reaction of events that will change my life. The moment I am able to go to Memphis and interview and get hired, I have to come to Chicago, put in notice to my current job, start packing my shit, make arrangements to rent a van and hire people to help me move, and a couple of weeks later, leave the only city I've ever lived in for one in which I've spent a very small amount of time. Oh, and I will either have to find someone willing to drive me and my shit down there and arrange for that person to get back home, or I will get my driver's license (which I may be taking the test for next weekend) and promptly attempt to make my way through several states to Memphis with very little driving experience. The fiancee is providing me with lots of support, trying to make sure that everything will go as smoothly as possible, but this is still a very nerve-wracking time in my life. Maybe it's taking its toll on my mind. I don't know. What I do know is that all of my complaining about feeling like my life is in a holding pattern while I figure out how to pursue a broadcasting career seems quaint compared to the vise I'm in right now.

Oh, and there's a wedding to plan that occurs seven months from now. But there's plenty of time for that, right?