Kaboom!

So last night, around 10:50pm, long after I should have already been asleep, I was still milling about getting ready for bed. I was chatting with Kelly when suddenly BOOM!! we felt the house shake and there was a short low rumble that made the dishes in the china cabinets on the main floor chime together. We both had the obvious reaction, what the hell was that? 

First thought, are Ma and Pa ok? Did someone fall? No wait, much too big of a noise for that. Did the cat knock something over? Well, unless the cat can pick the sofa four feet off the ground and drop it, then no, it wasn’t the cat. Maybe a car hit the house. Yeah, that could be it I guess, but an investigation outside revealed only other bewildered neighbours looking around wondering “what the hell was that?”

The sound of  fire trucks a few short minutes later indicated that something somewhere had gone terribly wrong.  We would have to wait until the morning news to find out what.

At 6am, when I normally hit snooze a few times, I couldn’t. I needed to know. And the explanation came quickly. A house exploded. No known cause yet, but a house blew up. Completely. Gone. Not on my block, not on my street even. Two streets over and four blocks up. Probably about a half mile away. And yet we felt it. I can’t imagine what it was like for people a few house away.

Tonight we took a walk to go have a peek. The road is still closed to traffic and the police are guarding the premises as it is now a criminal investigation. The yellow Police tape keeps the hordes of curious onlookers from getting too close. But it seemed like the whole neighborhood was filing past. After all, we are blessed to live in a part of the world where a house blowing up is a rare occurance.