Guy Montag is a fireman who works at nights while his wife Mildred stays at home. He gets home very late and does not turn on the lights because his wife is usually in bed asleep. He normally doesn't talk to her, either, for the same reason. But on one particular night, his attention is directed to his foot that happens to hit something lying on the floor. He flicks on his lighter and sees the following:
"The object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed. The small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare" (13).
He calls the emergency hospital and they send over two technicians with a stomach-pumping machine. He asks why they didn't send a doctor and they explain that this happens all the time. With so many calls each night for stomachs needing to be pumped, they simply train some people on the machine and charge people fifty bucks after the thirty minute pump is done.
This is a significant event because Montag doesn't understand what moved his wife to do such a thing. He even talks to her about it the next day and she completely denies the whole thing and won't talk to him about it. He wonders what type of unfulfilling life does she lead that would warrant the suicide attempt as well as completely denying there is a problem. This is one reason Montag starts to think that his society is completely inside-out.
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