Last Night

So... here's a run down of how last night went in the Priour house. I (Erin) was making dinner for our teammates, I had gone into the living room to pick up some stuff when I hear Jeff coughing really loudly and making hyperventilating noises. This didn't alarm me, because since we arrived here Jeff has had this really bad cough that sounds like he is dying every time he coughs. Then I start to hear some different noises, so I go into the kitchen to see what is going on because Jeff isn't answering my 'Are you okay?' yells. I go into the kitchen just in time to see him running out the front door. I follow him outside and he is throwing up in the yard. When he has settled down I'm trying to figure out what happened and he says 'Sorry, I threw up on the rug'. When we go back inside to clean up the rug I realize that our sink drain is clogged and is flooding our kitchen. So, I'm trying to keep dinner moving, get the rug cleaned up, and get the standing water mopped out the door. Suddenly, Jeff yells - 'It's on fire!'. I turn around to see a towel that is next to our gas stove totally engulfed in flames and Jeff is looking wildly around the kitchen trying to figure out what to do with it and I'm yelling 'Throw it outside, throw it outside!'. So, he throws it outside and fills up a bucket with water, but instead of walking outside and pouring it on the fire he just throws the bucket of water at it from inside the house. It put the fire out. And then I finished making dinner and we ate an hour late.

Oh, by the way, Jeff is fine. He wasn't sick, he just choked on his apple juice. It scared the crap out of me, but he's fine. I started crying right after this just because I was scared. I don't know the Heimlich maneuver and while I know you're supposed to throw yourself over a chair - we don't have any chairs because people here eat on mats on the floor. I don't know what I would have done, I don't even know any emergency numbers. The good news is that after all of this, I laughed really hard instead of bursting into tears. A week ago this might have pushed me over the edge, so I think we are doing better because we were both laughing. Here is what was left of our kitchen towel. Good thing we brought several from America.