End of Summer, Step 1: Radiator Ends Its Hibernation (and Mine, Too)

A garbled hiss and a dusty smell woke me up too early this morning (6:21 a.m.).  Car horns, road construction, and the passing T (and even raucous, party-prowling students) no longer throw a monkey wrench into my sleep cycle, so what kind of confounded machinery could be causing that disturbingly subtle racket outside and stirring up the dust I'm now inhaling?  And why is it so damn nice and toasty warm in here?!

That's when the distant, strained hiss became a three-feet-away-from-me rattle, like someone rolling marbles or popping popcorn inside metal pipes, and I discovered the radiator.

I, still in bed and resentful about my dream cycle's abrupt quashing, eyed the archaic contraption with distrust and uneasy fascination.  That thing, that tranquilized beast I had been using as a temporary place upon which to store stray items until I could fix my shelving unit, was now doing something, and I didn't like it one bit.

Don't those things explode?, I tried to recall.  Don't they make houses catch on fire sometimes?  Do they emit toxic fumes?  I suddenly regretted having postponed installation of the combination smoke-carbon monoxide detector because of the eardrum-shattering noises it screamed out.  Now I really needed it, because there was a potentially deadly household appliance next to me that could spontaneously combust any second now, and that sickly rattle bespoke its volatility.

But in the meantime, neither my room nor I was permeated with biting cold, which seemed a worse fate than standing by as a four-legged, white metal-coil beast puffed toxic dust into my living space.

The Wheezing Beast has since coiled up again into a frigid, soundless slumber, and now I only want to know how to turn it back on.