Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Life Lesson 93.156

Let me tell you about a time about a week and a half ago ... some of you may have already read this, apparently it's old news now...

The excitement began when the oven beeped. (Meaning that it had finished pre-heating and it was time to stick in the DiGiorno - not delivery.) So being quite hungry I scurried into the kitchen. Got the pizza out of the freezer.
Then I noticed something weird, there was some black smoke coming out by the bananas that were on top of the stove by some little vent thingy. I didn't think the bananas were smoking, so I decided to open the oven door and see what was up.
So I opened it a tad and all this black smoke came out. So I shut it quickly thinking okay crap. Then it hit me - i didn't take the stuff out of the stove before I pre-heated it (baking sheet, wire strainer, pizza stone, colander/strainer thingy). So I opened it again to inspect the damage.
Then I noticed the large flames inside in the midst of the smoky nightmare.
In come my couple of friends there with me, Carel and Ryan, to see what I was saying 'Oh no' for. Yeah, Ms. Stupid here forgot that plastic doesn't do well in ovens.
So we try to use our critical thinking skills in the heat of the moment (ha ...heat...) - but it's like 1:30 in the morning or we would've realized that instead of using the fire extinguisher we could've thrown water on it. But honestly, who knew that chemical nightmare would be so ridiculous to clean up!? And if I had thought about it and how crazy the situation was, I would've taken pictures of the flames and of Carel being the Extinguisher ... after figuring out how it works.
But yea. Flames go out no problem, but the whole kitchen filled with burnt smell and smoke so we opened every door and window - it got pretty damn cold. And they should tell you to always have some of those gas mask things handy when you use fire extinguishers, because inhaling all that chemical was sick. Our lungs are probably yellow and green - and black too. Colorful.
So after the fire is out, we inspect the damage and see what happened. Then we start clean-up. Ugh... it was insane all the places that chemical stuff got - the next day I swept up a big pile of it after pulling out the stove. But the drawer under the oven was coated with it, of course the oven got slammed in the blizzard of chemicals, the top of the oven, the counter. Basically everything. So it was a good night of cleaning and wiping down and making a pile of stuff to be washed and vacuuming the oven and laughing at everything...
..at least I didn't set a fire by myself...would I have been able to figure out the fire extinguisher? Would I even have noticed that there was a fire =P
But ... yes ... we opted to forget about the pizza. Enough chemical had entered our bodies. But ... it was an adventure ;-) And a fun night - lol at least for me. The end.
So lesson learned ... either pizza places on this side of the state need to stay open way later ... or always check the oven before you heat it

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