Is that smoke? Is there a fire?

I have had many close calls with near disasters.  Most of these have centered around my brain fog and issues with short-term memory.  The first happened early on after I moved into my “safe” house.  I was sitting on my cot which was not only my bed but my place to sit and read.  Then all of a sudden my smoke alarm was going off!  What could be on fire?  I panicked.  This was my only safe place.  What if there was an electrical fire?  Quickly I began to search room by room.  As I made my way through the living room, I could smell smoke in the kitchen?  What could be burning?  It was a pot of beans that I had put on to cook and then just as quickly forgot about.  After that incident, I began setting the timer on the stove.  Of course the timer only works if you can hear it.

One day my husband and I were outside and we saw smoke coming out of the vent in the kitchen.  Again, a pan was smoking!  I had set the timer and then walked outside and never heard it go off.  Now I set the timer and stay within range or turn the burner off.  I have had so many close calls.  The scariest part is that if my house were to burn, where would I go?

Fast forward a couple of years and it is Christmas time.  I am taking this excerpt from my book:

   On Christmas Eve, Laura and I made a cheesecake. There must have been too much butter in the crust or the pan was not put together correctly because it leaked all over the oven. In my infinite wisdom (and brain fog), I decided that we would just set the oven to the self-clean cycle and watch a movie. Then it would be clean the next morning and not smoke when we cooked dinner. All of a sudden we heard popping and crackling! There was a fire in the oven. We immediately turned the oven off and the whole house smelled of smoke. It was cold but we opened doors and windows in an attempt to get the smoke out. The smoke eventually left but the smell did not. Great! I had contaminated the only safe place I had. My only option was to go into the garage and sleep in the car. But it was so darn cold. My clothes in the house smelled, as did my blankets. My only choice was to sleep in the car wearing two Tyvek suits to try to stay warm, and I occasionally started up the car to turn the heater on. Morning came and, while the house wasn’t perfect, I managed by wearing my mask. But I had the awful task of washing and drying all the clothes my family would be wearing when they arrived as well as all my bedding. We survived but what a story that made.

Have you had any close calls with fires or near disasters because of brain fog or short-term memory loss?  I would love to hear your stories.