smells like...what's the opposite of freedom?

So we burnt up a serpentine belt on one of our generators yesterday. No big deal, really, in the scheme of things, but it's unsettling.   The lights flicker and dim as the engine dies, alarms blare, e-lights come on, and the sacred AC unit stutters to a halt. The silence behind the whistles and beeps is unnerving. After years and years of spending most of my time on a boat, it's wicked hard to sleep if there isn't a generator roaring or bull gear rumbling. The silence taint natural.

 At any rate, hustling into the gen house and being rewarded with the stink of burning giant fan belt, (like gunpowder and vomit) to fire up the other gen and switch the breaker panel over, we then proceeded to stare at the alter of the HVAC unit while it spooled back up successfully, probably as a result of our saalaaming and making burnt offerings to the god of AC.