I must have seen too many movies growing up because to me, natural gas equals explosion.
I have always been afraid of gas stoves and gas heaters, and every time I went to light my heater when I moved up north, I half expected to blow myself up.
The first few times I had to light my gas heater, I called my mother for courage. We come from a tropical area where gas is rarely used, except maybe for cooking. Our heat usually came in the form of a heating coil installed in our central a/c, which was usually a self-contained unit outside. Some people used space heaters. Almost nobody had fireplaces.We certainly did not have underground gas lines. Where I come from, the winters are mild and require little heat, if any at all. Then my husband and I moved north, and our new place came with a gas heater installed in the hallway that was big enough to heat the whole house. The things is, I had to light it with a flame. That thing scared me. I made my husband light it if he was home. I was afraid that I would take too long to light it and the gas would seep around me and I would end up catching my hair on fire. That was one scenario. Another one was a gas leak I hadn’t detected made the whole house explode. Other scenarios come to mind, none any prettier, and I can tell you that I was totally afraid of that gas heater. But, I got used to it.