Happy Monday, Persephoneers! I hope your first weekend of December was a good one. It’s unseasonably warm in central Indiana, which has turned out to be a good thing for my household.
Our toaster crapped out on us this weekend in the most fantastic way. After sort of burning bits of toast yesterday, it full-out charred two pieces of bread today. While I was in the shower, Mr. Sally J popped some bread in the toaster and went around the corner. Within minutes, the toast was charred to a crisp, the smoke detector was beeping and the kids thought we should call 911 (we didn’t).
Now it’s nearly 12 hours later and the house still smells like burning. I’m glad the windows and doors were able to be thrown wide open today to help air things out.
What’s your most favorite minor disaster? You can tell me. I smell like burnt toast.
18 replies on “Monday Night Flashback Open Thread: Minor Disasters”
My garbage disposal has been broken for over a month, and it smells like a new, purely evil, lifeform is about to spring from my drain like something out of a Bruce Campbell movie. I haven’t replaced it yet, because I just had to replace the microwave, and the HVAC, and the vacuum cleaner only works if I kick it. That’s not dirt on my carpet, it’s performance art.
I once forgot a pot of soup on the stove until it had turned into a sludge of burnt bits. I freaked out when I saw it and promptly took the pan outside and plonked it in the snow (I was 13 or so, it seemed like a good idea at the time). Ruined that pan beyond repair.
Had an awesome weekend at Teslacon. The panel I gave seemed fairly well received. Went to House on the Rock on the way home, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Seriously. That place is like walking through the inside of someone’s head in the coolest possible way.
I am increasingly frustrated with my current job and I am obsessively checking my email for a response from the people I have been interviewing with. They showed me around the building and talked about where to get lunches at the last one, so I am hoping that there is an offer coming my way. I should hear something today or tomorrow.
My disasters did not smell as good as burnt toast. One involved a plastic jug on a hot hob. A lot of smoke, stink and stickiness followed. Thought I’d put the hob on for the kettle, and well, the kettle didn’t heat up but the entire base of the plastic jug on the other hob melted spectacularly. I ended up having to scrape as much off as I could using a knife, whilst flinging windows open and sticking a fan on.
The other one involved a microwave. It was one of those that had a grill function. We had never used the grill function, and I guess the grill part had got a little … mucky, and so, I switched on the grill one day and er, it almost caught fire. Thankfully there were just big sparks and I was able to switch it off at the wall in time.
I have acquired a cat. I mentioned to my parents yesterday that I was thinking about getting one, and this morning my mom called to tell me that she had one if I wanted it. Her coworker’s husband, a construction worker, had found a cat on the site he was working on. She’d been hanging around for a few days, snuggling all the workers and trying to get into their cars with them. He said lots of people dump animals there, and if I didn’t want her, they were just going to take her to the shelter.
So after work today I bought cat food and a litter box, and here we are. I thought she was going to be scared and hide when I brought her in, but she just walked around and sniffed everything, and now she’s snuggling with me on the couch.
I’m thinking she must be somebody’s cat, so tomorrow I’m going to take her to a vet to see if she’s microchipped. She didn’t have a collar, but I can’t imagine somebody dumping her. And I guess I should put something online to say I found her, too. But if I don’t hear from anybody I’m totally keeping her.
Yay kitty!!
So I spent today checking up on some of my favorite bands to see if they had released anything new. And I totally scored with a new Dropkick single! Now I shall share it with you:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fmusic%2Fvideos%2Fdropkick-murphys-ante-up-in-rose-tattoo-premiere-20121107%23ooid%3DdyeXJxNjpF57ISdqdURz63k_l_skckgk&h=PAQGptTe1
Falling down a flight of stairs the morning of my dance recital. Yeah. I still performed, something absurd like nine routines. And I wonder why my knees are shot at the ripe old age of 34.
Ooo, I remember a cursed production of Romeo and Juliet where the young lady playing the Nurse sprained her ankle minutes before the house opened on opening night. She returned from the urgent care center, dosed up on pain killers and sporting a crutch, just in time to walk on stage for her first entrance. It was epic.
I know that nurse, and that cursed play! I was never so glad for a play to be over as that one. Thinking about it still gives me the piss shivers.
We all have a show like that. Mine was called Chattaqua. Don’t ask.
When Lexie was a wee thing, I went into the kitchen and popped a couple (special ordered, impossible to find in stores) breast pump flanges into a small pot of water on the stove to boil/sterilize them while she was napping. I didn’t set the timer since I was also grabbing a snack and figured I’d just turn off the stove when I went back in the kitchen to throw out my napkin.
Of course, Lexie woke up hungry before I finished the snack and I forgot all about the stove. I settled down on the couch to nurse her, and then my husband called to say he was on the way home from work. I kinda thought something smelled funny, but I lived in Queens, that was nothing unusual. Finally I glanced up and realized the apartment was quite smoky. I freaked the fuck out, put Lexie down, and RAN into the kitchen. Fortunately the plastic just melted when the water boiled off; it didn’t actually catch on fire. I took it off the stove, opened every window in the apartment, and sat out on the balcony crying and hugging Lexie until the smoke cleared.
Oh so scary!!
Since becoming a parent, I have burned more things on the stove than I care to admit. I’ve ruined two saucepans with scorched rice, and two electric burners with plastic melting onto their still-hot surfaces. Just today I put on eggs to boil and walked away, only to remember them like 20 minutes later. All’s well that ends well.
It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who has done similar things to saucepans and hobs. I have now given up on rice and use a microwave rice cooker.
Last winter, our brand-spanking-new furnace crapped out on us… on what was the coldest day of the winter (of course). I was less than pleased, and quite worried that our lizards would not be happy over night. Turned out snow or leaves had blocked the air intake so the pilot could not ignite.
I am reminded of this today, as the same thing happened yesterday – right before we were heading out to the department’s winter social. Argh. …at least we knew what the cause was, and how to fix it. But, again, I was less than pleased.
No lizards were harmed in the posting of this message.
After a disastrous phone call with my parents last night, my sister calls me today to tell me how our Mom is freaking out about it. This somehow lead to my after graduation plans and my sister telling me she was proud of me for putting thought into my plans (I’m going to try to start with some type of office work since I have experience in that and in the meantime I might go back to school in a continuing education program because I want to do things my degree hasn’t prepared me for.) I can’t remember the last time my sister has given me praise.
It’s always nice to get some praise from somewhere unexpected. I’m sorry things went badly with your parents, but at least something positive came out of the conversation with your sister.
My husband destroyed our first microwave with a bag of popcorn. The result was something like this:
I am honestly surprised there hasn’t been a class action suit against microwave popcorn and the damamge it can cause.
An update on my kitchen: It still smells like burning. And everyone wanted toast today.