Yesterday afternoon Mrs. MoM and I were spending a Lazy Sunday watching a movie and working puzzle games. Other than the fact that Mrs. MoM wasn’t in the midst of a post-church nap, it was a fairly standard Sunday afternoon.

As sometimes happens, she asked me if I smelled something. With having a Super Sniffer and me having somewhat the opposite, I let her know that I wasn’t sure. We’ve have a lot of smoke in the air due to summer fires in the surrounding mountains, so I chalked it up to that. When she asked a second time I decided to go outside and have a sniff for myself. I definitely smelled smoke, but it had the distinct odor of burning plastic. This wasn’t a forest fire driving fifty miles to our nostrils.

That’s when I noticed smoke rising from the other side of my nest door neighbor’s house.

I went over to ask if they were in charge of the smoke. Their puzzled look on their faces let me know that this was a problem. As it turns out, a rag with tung oil on it had been thrown out and it spontaneously combusted. After we put out the fire using a hose and two fire extinguishers, we noticed that one plastic trash can was melted down to about 1 foot high and the other had a hole melted in the bottom. The two propane tanks right next to the trash cans were unharmed.

They say “When there’s smoke, there’s fire.” On this occasion they were right. The neighbors had not smelled it, but my wife did. Thank goodness for the Super Sniffer! In my recovery people sometimes smell smoke that is drifting over my house and escaping my own nose. It takes a lot less effort to investigate early than it does to repair major damage. When people smell smoke in your life, look for the fire. Sometimes we look out in order to…

— Rise Up!!