Fur-covered CO detector

[HeyBub]

"NEW CASTLE, Ind. - A cat helped spare a family from death by carbon monoxide poisoning by jumping on the bed and meowing wildly as fumes filled the home..."

[GROUP MODERATOR]

smart cat. dumb people. has any one here done anything dumber than leaving a gas engine running in the basement and then going to sleep? about the dumbest thing I can remember doing when I was a teenager I was working on a motorcycle I had, suzuki 185, and had loosened the wheel nuts to adjust something and didn't tighten them back all the way. On my first test drive in front of the house I popped a wheelie and the front wheel came off and then I aimed for the grass and when the forks came down in the dirt I flipped a few times. Could have been worse, nothing broken but my pride.

[mm]

It was just on the 11PM news here on an ABC station. I didn't know a cat could notice CO or that it would do anything this nice. Maybe it was just concerned about itself.

Well, I was on a trip home, and heard soemthing going clunk, clunk, and for some reason decided my wheel bearing was going bad, and there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, so I might as well keep driving.

When I finished the trip an hour later, I looked and foudn that it was not the bearing, that my front wheel lug nuts had been loose (I'm glad the wheel didn't fall off) and I had damaged the threads on two of the studs, and made the wheel holes out of round.

IF that wasn't bad enough, instead of learning how to replace lug studs, I just got a used hub and brake drum with studs in place, and even though I knew one is not supposed to mix one half of an old bearing with the other half of another old bearing, I did it. Drove around NYC for a day with no problem, so I decided the car was good, and left the next day for Chicago, with 2 riders I got from a bulletin board, and didn't know. Made it along I-80 almost to Ohio when one of the riders was driving and she told me the car was making a noise. So I drove for a little bit, and as she said, when I turned the wheel a bit, no noise, but when I went straight ahead some high-pitched squeal iirc. Stopped the car, and touched the hub where I had changed the brakedrum, and it was burning hot.

Looked ahead a quarter mile and there was an exit ramp with a gasstation at the end. What a relief. Went there and he said he couldn't fix it! He said there was a Pontiac dealer only a mile away in this little town of Mercer, Pa. iirc. I went there and the first thing the mechanic does is look at the clock. 4:45. I figure he is going to say he can't fix it that day, and I'll have to pay for motel rooms for my two riders, one a girl and one a boy, so that's one room for her and one for us two guys. Dang.

But he doesn's say that. He starts and takes off the brake drum, and the wheel bearing has melted and fused to the spindle! He says he can't do it! And again I think about the motel and wonder if I'll be able to drive that far, what with melting steel and all. But he gets his boss. His boss says I might need a new spindle when he's done. But he manages to cut the bearing off with an acetlyene torch, without damaging the spindle at all. Then, my car is only about 7 years old, but somehow he doesn't have one of the parts. Back to the motel, I think. I guess it's a part that never wears out and they don't stock.

The one non-stupid thing I had done was to put all the parts I took out in my trunk so, I forget what it was but I have it. He puts the car back together and it's 5:15. Bearing in mine that this is about

1973, what do you suppose he charges for all this? Answer below, but guess now.

So the whole experience only wasted about 45 minutes. This was back in the days when I was very lucky. And we were about 8 hours from Chicago, and I guess we got there at 1 or 2 in the morning. Anyhow, he charged me iirc 7 dollars. He said it was all labor because I had provided the parts. Even in 1975 this was no money. I thought it was going to be 50 dollars, and I was amazed, and I think I also put 10 dollars in their coffee fund, so they could buy cake or something. I apologized for making him stay late, and he said it was no problem because it only took him 5 minutes to get home anyhow. That's life in a small town.

[---MIKE---]

I don't think the cat noticed CO. There were probably other noxious fumes that he did smell.

---MIKE---

[HeyBub]

Don't neglect the possibility that the cat simply wanted to bother its two-legged friend.

[Just Joshin]

Personally I hate articles like this. Some people see it as justification not to get real CO detectors. :(

tom @

[mm]

Worse than that, some people see it as justification to get a cat.

[Just Joshin]

Ha ha ha, cute.

[aspasia]

Or that he wanted to get the hell out of there and needed somebody to open the door!