By Christie D'Zurilla
Published in the Orange County Register

My house and I have an understanding.

I understand it was built in 1935. It understands I can't always afford to fix stuff right when it breaks. And until recently, I understood that the only thing it had any intention of killing was my budget.

I try to keep up on my old-house maintenance, so when the however-many-years anniversary of my last furnace cleaning rolled around during the year's first cold snap, I called a furnace guy right away. You know, one of those licensed contractors listed in the Yellow Pages who does plumbing, heating and air ... though how anyone got that combination is beyond me.

I unfortunately uttered the words "safety check" to a guy who works on commission.

Suddenly I had a crack in my fire box (looked like corrosion to me), a fire hazard in my ducts (looked fine to me) and was in vague danger of something close to natural disaster if I switched on the furnace. Oh, and if I want to fix it right, it'll be $5,500.

About this time I wished I'd called my gas company instead for a safety check. But my main intention had been to get the thing cleaned. I really figured I was safe enough.

I smiled, we discussed his tattoos, he found four other things in my house that "needed fixing," and he went on his way. I had another contractor out within the hour, and a third out two days later. Final verdict: Not the fire box, the flue box. Not that expensive to fix. Maybe there's another year in the old beast, but I shouldn't run it without getting a carbon monoxide monitor first.

I was in no mood to buy a CO monitor. I would borrow my folks' the next weekend.

I am not a stupid person. I am not a gambling person. I studied gases and chemical reactions for years, graduating with a chemistry degree. I am not an ignorant person.

Unfortunately, that week, I realized I was a very, very cold person.

Armed with all the facts, researching online, comparison shopping, promising that we'd pick up that monitor as soon as possible, I and the Other Half of the Mortgage (his pet name) sort of started turning on the furnace.

Thirty minutes here, 45 there. Kicking it on just to take the edge off the cold. Didn't sleep with it on because that'd be, well, unsafe.

The bet paid off until that Sunday, when in the morning I dropped the Other Half off at LAX for a business trip. Confident that I'd cheated death by getting in and out of the airport safely before 8:30 a.m., I decided to take a decadent, broad-daylight nap.

I opened the back door so our three dogs could run in and out, turned on the TV and plopped on the couch with the paper. With a bagel.

With the heat on.

I mean, it was really stinkin' cold.

The first hour of sleep was just sleep. I'd gotten up much earlier than journalists are built for. The next couple of hours, where I fought to keep my eyes open and took aspirin for my headache, seemed like a relapse of the cold I'd fought off two days before.

I was warm, sleep felt good (I was so sleepy!), and boy, was it nice to have heat.

The next part _ the nausea, the uncontrollable narcoleptic sensation, the three riveting bars of pain in my forehead - should have been the part that told me what the dogs already knew: My house really wasn't the best place to be lounging around if I were interested in, say, living.

The dogs _ just as cold as I had been, though apparently much smarter _ were all happily outside. Hey, they'd gotten out of the animal shelter alive; they weren't about to blow it now.

Somewhere around 3 p.m., a "Beverly Hills, 90210" rerun caught my attention. I started to stir. By 4 p.m. I was awake. Bad headache, but awake. Called the folks (I had canceled our dinner plans around noon because I was "sick") and told them I'd come by. Maybe pick up that monitor.

I turned the thermostat off, and with it the chance of any more heat, showered and got in the car, surprised at how much better I was feeling. The house had seemed a little ... off. Wrong. I'd probably just been inside for too long.

When I got home around midnight to my freezing-cold house, I flipped the heat back on. Plugged in that monitor.

Like most CO monitors, this one is a plastic gizmo _ with the basic size, weight and agility of a loaf of banana bread _ that connects straight into the wall. It's just heavy enough to fall out of my worn-out electrical sockets if you so much as breathe on it. It lets out a loud beeeeeep when it disconnects. And it's the same monitor that read "zero" on its bright-red display for so long that I gave it back to my mom with an order not to buy me any more useless gadgets.

So I fed the dogs. Came back in five minutes to check the monitor.

Oops.

I had checked the Consumer Product Safety Commission's Web site before leaving for my folks' house and had learned that 70 parts per million of carbon monoxide in the air is dangerous if you are exposed over a long period of time. At 150 to 200 ppm, you run the risk of falling asleep and never waking up. It all depends on how much gas is there and how long you are there with it.

Number on my monitor? 439.

At this point I opened all the doors and windows, turned on the ceiling fans and sent the dogs back outside.

Then I called my local gas company.

After hearing my story and my CO numbers, the thoughtful gas-company man one the other end of the line realized he had a job to do. He turned on his Emergency Voice and said, "OPEN ALL THE WINDOWS AND DOORS IMMEDIATELY."

At least I got one thing right.

"GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. DO YOU NEED ANY MEDICAL ATTENTION? DO YOU NEED ME TO CALL 911?"

Maybe it was just my brand-new headache (again) that made the voice sound so loud. Maybe I had really done something stupid. I said no, the numbers are dropping, I think I'm fine, I'm smart, I have blankets, I have socks, I have dogs, no need to worry about little old me. I'll be perfectly warm. I won't do anything like turning on the stove or oven to keep warm. I mean, that would fill the house with carbon monoxide. That would be stupid.

"So help me out here," he asked, a little more quietly. "A furnace inspector told you that you shouldn't turn on the furnace and you ... turned on the furnace?"

Yeah, well.

I called the Other Half the next morning and told him that, whoops, I'd almost killed myself.

Yeah, right, he said. You did not. Drama Queen.

Well, yeah, right, actually, I did, and I almost took all three dogs with me. You'd be calling a cab from the airport, honey, with no hugs or wags when you got home.

Both Halves of the Mortgage spent the next 10 days being really smart about getting a deal on a new furnace. We got air conditioning, a rebate and a free air filter, too.

We slept in layers of socks and sweats until it was installed. One night the Drama Queen even wore a hat. We learned that a dog in the bed is worth two in the next room when you have no heat. And putting a few dogs in the bed is even better.

So please get your furnace checked, even if it's younger than 66 years old. And if the furnace guy says to keep the heat OFF, don't be dumb.

It doesn't matter how cold it is.

It's a really stupid way for a smart person to die.