Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Дэлгэрцэцэг's Mistake

I just realized that I never told about this story that happened. Every morning, I woke up, got ready, ate breakfast, and then studied for several hours (first scripture study for an hour by myself, an hour with my companion, and finally an hour of language study). We (Sister Дэлгэрцэцэг [Delgertsetseg] and I) were getting ready for out conference in Энгельс (Engels) where we needed to have a white elephant gift. We were leaving the next day, and Sister Дэлгэрцэцэг still needed to find one. We had brought a lot of stuff from Энгельс when we moved because we had to empty the apartment. There were many things left by other sisters who had gone home, so we had to bring those things, too. I told her that she could look through those things and pick something for her gift. She went into the other room and started looking through the stuff while I continued to study.
Before long, I heard a shriek come from that room. I called out, "What's wrong?" but then realized what had happened. I remembered that a certain dangerous item had been among those we brought from Энгельс, in fact, there was a certain thing called pepper spray there. I immediately realized that she must have sprayed the pepper spray. I ran into that room and sure enough, I found Sister Дэлгэрцэцэг sitting on the bed (luckily it wasn't the room we sleep in) with her hands over her face. I told her that we needed to get out of there. I took her into the kitchen where we opened the window, shut the door and closed ourselves from that awful smell. I figured that we could have an early lunch.
Well, soon after, I realized that we needed to open a window in the other room so that the spray could clear. I left the kitchen, but was unable to get very far before I started coughing and my eyes started burning. It was a horrible feeling (anyone who has experienced pepper spray knows what that feels like). So, I had to go back into the kitchen to save myself. The next time I ventured out, I got a towel to cover my face so I could run and open a window. I opened the balcony door to try and clear the apartment.
In the meantime, we ate and began to wait for the smell to clear. I think we were shut up in that kitchen for an hour and a half. I even braved the other room (with a towel of course) to get something to read while we waited. I've never been happier to be able to leave a place then when we realized that the smell had completely dissipated and we could venture out of the kitchen without risk of hacking and burning.
Later, Sister Дэлгэрцэцэг told me that she remembered me telling her in Энгельс to never, ever touch that little but deadly can. In the process of the move and everything, she completely forgot. As she was looking through the stuff, she thought it was perfume or air freshener and wanted to know what it smelled like. She found out, alright, and I experienced my first (and only?) brush with pepper spray.

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