National Coffee Day

Today is Friday. My news emails tell me that today is National Coffee Day-2023, which is the first that I have ever heard of this holiday. Sounds energetically pleasant. So, since I have had nearly a solid week of task completion and exercise goals achieved I thought that I would start the weekend early and celebrate the day by taking it easy, lolling about with cups of coffee. I used to drink a small pot of black coffee each morning when I first started working but half a century later I am down to just one cup of milk-coffee in the morning so I was not sure how many cups of coffee my old tummy can take. I was willing to give it my best effort though. With an unaccustomed caffeine buzz driving me I decided to spend my 3-day weekend writing the short story that has been building so delightfully in my head. How extravagant!

Then with another sip and another jolt of energy I thought, well, I will start my lolling about after I do just one load of laundry. I try to utilize any extra energy that I have by doing the physically impossible tasks that I still must do even if I am old and disabled. Doing each load of laundry requires me to walk the laundry basket of clothes down steep stairs with me going down backwards pulling the basket down with me step by step, then I carry the basket of laundry on my shoulder down the length of the basement of this building which was built in 1830 and has rough surfaces, then I stoop through a quite low and narrow door, and then I carry the laundry basket around a corner to where the mid-1900s washer and drier stand on dirty silted concrete. (If I drop any piece of laundry on the floor the gray silt sticks to it and it must be rewashed.)

All that being as it is, I was not even halfway into the process of doing one load of laundry, when I encountered danger lurking. The danger that I am concerned about is an open gas can sitting in the same room of the basement as the building's disassembled but still functioning furnace. There is nothing that I can do about it. After what I have seen in Augusta, Maine I do not think that anyone but me would be concerned about it.

Note: safety protocol for hazardous substances like fire accelerants, such as gasoline, are that they be in a sealed container, placed well away from fire sources, such as an open furnace pilot light, and kept in locked storage. None of which is being done here.

Taking It Easy Today by Annmarie Throckmorton, copyright 2023

Open gas can seems like a hazard in the basement of the old fire risk building where I live, 1, 2, & 3