Unless you light your house is ON FIRE.
That’s right. Fire.
Most people I know spend Sunday(s) watching football, drinking beer, eating pizza. Or, sleeping in, watching movies, resting and taking it easy.
Well, not up in here.
I wasn’t even going to write about this, because clearly, I am unfit as a parent, and, I should not be allowed in a kitchen. EVER.AGAIN. (this is WHY we order in, eat out, or have diner at my mom and dads house.)
My son wanted me to heat up some soup and the left over meatball sub for diner. Excellent. Easy! Added bonus, no cooking involved! No problem. ?
I put the soup in microwavable bowl and I put meatball sub in a tin foil wrapper in the toaster oven.
Three minuets ‘til diner would be served. Perfect!
Then, I returned to my sofa, to the middle of the long promised IM conversation.
During my playful banter on the IM, I smelled smoke. Hmm… maybe? I should check that out?
Toaster oven…ON FIRE!
What the fuck do I do?
First I ripped the cord out from the wall. (good job moron, now I was playing with electricity and fire) Then I opened the door to the toaster oven (adding oxygen to the fire, as someone pointed out to me last night, only makes matters worse) and filled the house with white smoke.
Now, I live on the third floor of a well sprinklered building, so, I was concerned that if my smoke detector went off, so would all the sprinklers in my house. (I was not concerned that I was possibly going to die, or that my son was in any danger, oh no….my only concern was that the things in my house would get wet, and that my neighbors would kill me, not the fire.)
Must stop fire, must control smoke, shit….
“JUSTIN… COME HERE! HELP!â€
(like a 10 year old has the power / ability to handle fire fighting)
Looking back, I probably should’ve emailed EMERGENCY to the firefighter Dan before taking matters into my own hands…(or called 911, or called my dad, or left the house, or any number of other rational choices.)
but… nooooooo… instead? I start screaming!
“Justin, GET IN HERE!â€
(drawing the child closer to the danger)
“You have to open the windows… all of them…â€
“Yes, I know it smells like fire, the toaster oven IS on fire, and yes I know its cold, just do it… NOW…â€
“While mommy is trying to control the flames, I need you… you gotta grab some towels and swinging them in the air and use anything else to deflect the smoke from heading towards the detectors!!â€
We even took out the osculating fan, and aimed it right at the smoke detector, in hopes of stopping the sprinklers from exploding.
(which did work!)
After 10 minutes, hitting the toaster oven with dish rags, and running around breathing through our shirts as masks…the fire put it self out.
But the smoke wouldn’t stop.
So, “genius†that I am, decided to pour water on the still smoking toaster oven.
Here is a little secret I wish I had known yesterday!
water + smoke = waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more smoke.
thick, black, nasty smoke.
more water = more smoke. for hours.
And…that was right after I just finished the 6 ½ hour marathon cleaning of the house to immaculate conditions and smelling fresh of scented candles.
So much for cutting down on my smoke inhalation!
I planned on calling back all of the people I have ignored all weekend, (due to intense manual labor…see scaffolding post on Saturday) and I was all set to do something for myself… but, sorry again, to everyone I blew off…I was too busy putting out a self made fire and creating MORE SMOKE in my house.
Ahh! The trials of life. Cheer up – it’s a holiday!
its not a “HOLIDAY” when you are IN THE OFFICE and….you had to bring your CHILD TO WORK WITH YOU, because HE is on a holiday…
jch: “mom can we go yet?”
me: “no.”
jch: “mom can we go yet?”
me: “no.”
jch: “mom can we go yet?”
me: “no.”
jch: “mom can we go yet?”
me: “no.”
ALL DAY
but I will check out your BLOG (when I get home tonight) since you commmented and all….
In truth it was one of the more interesting (albeit fractured) IM chats I’ve had in awhile. Or was it the fracture that made it interesting?
Dooooooood!
Michael, I’m sorry! I OWE you some UNDIVIDED ATTENTION at some point!!
if you ever light your toaster on fire you should really try these tips.
1):dont add water
2):keep smoke away from smoke detectors
3):open windows immediatley
4):eat pie(just kidding)
DONT ASK MY MOM FOR HELP
Justin
MICHAEL: from THIS BLOG
http://www.caffeinatedmusingsfromthedesktop.blogspot.com/
WAS WITNESS TO FIRE IN ACTION:
when you wrote THIS on your blog: I almost died!
“On an unrelated note, a much hyped and much hushed IM conversation took place between myself and fellow blogger Meleah. After numerous MySpace and blog comment exchanges, we finally sat down in front of our respective monitors and had a chat. The meeting was short-lived, however, when Mel almost burned her apartment down in the middle of the chat, thereby ending the aforementioned conversation. Read about it in the link above.
This leaves a number of possibilities.
1. The next time we chat World War III will erupt.
2. I have unknowingly become an alibi in Mel’s arson scam for insurance to finance her writing.
3. Mel thought I was really boring and lit a fire to get away.
You know you’re in bad shape when they’re setting fires to get away from you…..”
THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME LAUGH !!!!!
YOU ROCK!!
i just realized I have a very boring life…hey if you think you are the only one ask Rick about the time he left candles on the stove to burn with Ernie upstairs sleeping..well the whole stove caught on fire and they called the fire dept. Then my uncle and aunt Irene was watching us one New Years Eve and put too much wood in the fire place which we had to call the fire dept. Then there was a time when Ernie was replacing the roof of the house and someone dropped a cigaret that caused a fire in the roof so the fire dept was called again..do you want me to continue.. BFNC..you are only human. and very cute..
Yeah I have my moments….
Truth still proves stranger than fiction…what does that leave us to write I wonder? lol…
If you have the nerve I defer to you to arrange another IM, being you’re a single mom and all and probably have a busier schedule than me. Look me up!
BFNC:
OMG! I can JUST SEE ERNIE …. (my he rest in peace)I feel much better now that I know of THREE other HOUSE fires (in the same house! with the same “cast” of characters!!)
YES! MICHAEL… I WILL IM again…
I do not have my son this weekend, its his fathers weekend. My girlfriend Jennifer is coming over, BUT I’ll be on line at some point!!
Iknow Im not supposed to laugh but but it reminds me of a Marx brothers type of skit. Now for the serious part sorry you had the problems with the toaster. The worst is the smoke and the more water you add the more smoke your gonna get. For future reference sprinklers are set off by a rise in temp ( been a while since I worked with them I forgot the temp ratings)Glad everyone is Ok and damage was done. The embarassing point would have been if the audible alarm went off and the fire dept responded, whats worse if had been my town. Smile
Dan