Out of the Frying Pan

For those of you who have been privy to my burned popcorn, burned soup, burned teapot, and burned shelf stories, here's the latest edition in the "Here am I..Burn me" series.

I had just finished frying the last quesadilla and was sitting at my desk trying to figure out why my email wasn't working (which was another issue entirely). Sharon had just told me I may need to pack up my computer in my 29 inch suitcase and take it to Alvin next weekend to fix. All at once, I hear Sharon say, "Kris, what are you burning?!" then, "Get out here NOW!" What have I done this time?? I wondered. I was positive I had turned the burner off. I ambled out to see what she was talking about. I entered the hall and saw this smokey "mist" in the atmosphere. What in the world?? Sharon was standing in the middle of the kitchen with a smoking frying pan in her grasp. Bah! I was pretty sure this couldn't have been me...I've learned my lesson about Hot Things before. Yet the evidence, along with Sharon's accusing eye, gave me reason to believe it must be connected with me somehow.

What to do? What to do? Sharon told me to open the kitchen window for ventilation. "But the toads, Sharon, the toads." Well, open it from the top down then." I clambered on top of the sink murmuring about my no-good luck! And then we thought of it at the same time. The smoke alarms!! We now have tenants upstairs, and it would just be unacceptable to have our fire alarms go off and ruin an otherwise congenial relationship. Keep in mind, our smoke alarms are all connected. If one goes off, they all go off. Sharon didn't know what to do with the frying pan as it was hissing and bubbling (my nice teflon pan *weep here*). "Shall I put it under water?" she asked. "I don't care what you do with it," I said. "We need to wave something in front of the smoke detectors so they don't go off." I abandoned the window at this point because I couldn't determine if the window was locked or unlocked.

I hopped off the sink and scurried back down the hall. My adrenaline was kicking in, and I made record time down the hall and into the sewing room. "I'll just disconnect the thing," I told myself. I reached up and pulled the battery out. I knew something wasn't right with that plan, but in my frenzied state, I couldn't determine quite what it was. Oh yes. Taking the battery out won't help at all as long as we have electricity. I need to twist and pull it away from the wall.

On to mine and Sharon's rooms. The smoke was sure enough making its way down the hall. But I had my A-game for the first time of the day. I slammed the doors shut, grabbed my office chair, and stood on it in order to reach the smoke detector above my desk. I agree that this would've been considered a precarious position, but it had to do for the moment. Things were alright for all of two seconds.. I think I might've moved too hastily, for in the blink of an eye, I was wobbling, wobbling... Oh dear. Not only am I going to have a burnt pan to contend with, but I'm also going to have a broken leg. I crashed down unceremoniously onto my desk, sending a pile of papers and cds down onto the floor. Well, crumbs! Thank goodness I didn't do any further damage to myself. >Much<>

Back to the sewing room I went. Sharon, in the meantime, had disconnected hers in her room. Whew. Almost home free. I reached up to disconnect the sewing room alarm when screeeeeeeeeeeeech! WHAT??? What a terrible sound!! The sound sends chills through your bones. Too late. The smoke alarms were going full blast, downstairs and upstairs. Sharon met me in the hall and said, "We forgot about the one in the hall!!!" *Bang head against wall AGAIN!* I said, "Wave something in front of it..Quick!" Somehow I had this idea that if we quickly got it to shut up, they might not have noticed it upstairs. Sharon handed me the step ladder she was holding and desperately waved something from the dirty laundry basket in front of it. Whatever it was remains Unidentified. No sooner had we got it to shut off when it started up again. "Wave, Sharon, wave!!" I quickly set the ladder up, climbed up, and yanked the cord....er, wire. Then back to the sewing room to finish the first one. Blessed quietness, to be sure.

Then I had to climb the Steps of Humiliation. I tromped up the stairs and knocked. Stacey came to the door, and I humbly explained that everything was alright, and no, they didn't need to evacuate the premises. And I'm so sorry. Naughty burner. Stacey was very gracious and said she had done the same thing just the other day, only she hadn't set the alarms off (why me, then?).

I came back downstairs, and then oh... Sharon had a howl. She laughed until she cried. She guffawed and hee-hawed. She relived each painful detail until I quite wearied of it. We did manage to open the window. We also opened the door at the top of the stairs. I dragged my fan out of the closet and tried to keep the smoke out in the kitchen/living room area. This whole setup is still in effect. We've turned the lights off to keep any bugs from wandering in.

We figured out that yes, I HAD turned the burner off (AHA!)... only it was more on High than it was on Off... :-(

Whereupon, I decided that indeed... it's a tough job being me.

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I’ve decided to also attach Sharon’s version of the sordid affair. It reads as follows:

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I’m feeling deliciously lighthearted at the present moment.WKU is currently on fall break and my homework load is somewhat lighter than normal, but fall break isn’t necessarily responsible for my current tendency to break out into full hysterical laughter……no, it’’s life itself……with Kris as a sister/roommate/near arsonist.The evening started out innocently enough. I had gone to Mom’s for some chicken and rice for supper and brought the remaining portion home for Kris. After Kris got home from work, she ate what was there and still feeling somewhat hungry, she decided that some pepperjack quesadillas were in order. I was in the mood for some quesadillas as well, so I fixed one up for myself and took it to my room to munch as I messed with my e-mail. Rather than pack up the small hunk of cheese that was left, Kris just fried up another quesadilla.A short time later, I was interested in a drink so I headed to the kitchen in search of one. As I neared the kitchen, I heard a snap……and a crackle……and a pop. I saw a haze wafting out of the kitchen……and the smell, well, there isn’t one quite like it. (It immediately brought back flashbacks of last winter when Kris put on a pot of water to boil to make cappuccino and then went to study while waiting for it to come to a boil. She promptly forgot about it until I happened upon the scene after my shower, only to find the pot had boiled dry and was melting to the burner.) "Kris!! What are you doing?!?" I hollered back down the hall as I dashed into the kitchen expecting to see open flames because of the popping and crackling. Thankfully, the flames were non-existent but the bright red coil and smoking pan were real enough! Kris came bounding down the hall as Igrabbed the frying pan from the burner and turned the knob the remaining half-inch from as-High-as-it-would-go to Off.

"Oh, no!" she said. "Not again!! Is it ruined?" I don’t know. Will it ruin it if I put water in the pan when it’s that hot?" I asked her, fearing the Teflon would just curl right off the pan at any moment."I don’t know……it’ll just spatter you.". Hmm……comforting thought. I just kind of stood there for a bit, holding the smoking pan, not sure what to do with it. And then, "Quick, fan the smoke detectors so they don’’t go off!" Kris said, not wanting to disturb our renters on the first floor.She dashed back down the hall to start fanning smoke detectors and I knew that I couldn’t do any good with a smoking pan in my hand so I headed for the sink to try watering down the pan. It sizzled and boiled mightily but didn’t get too volcanic so I put it on one of the cool burners and headeddown the hall to try to help avert the disastrous setting off of alarms that sets off the whole house, not just the basement. Too late. "Shut our bedroom doors so the smoke can’t get to the detectors in there," one of us said. (It’s hard to remember who said what in a situation like that.) We slammed the doors of both our bedrooms and the sewing room but they continued to wail.

"Disconnect them," one of us said. I opened mybedroom door as Kris headed into her room and I jumped up onto the bed and turned the detector a quarter turn and disconnected the wires from the back. I put it on my bedside table and rushed back out into the hall. Kris’s door was closed and I heard a clatter inside as I tried to gather my wits aboutme and figure out how we could stop the wailing. I later found out that Kris had been standing on her swivel office chair to reach her smoke alarm……and (*drum roll, please*) it swiveled. She knocked a bunch of stuff to the floor trying to keep her balance.By this time, I could hear footsteps upstairs from the renters. Kris & I looked at each other, a bit wild-eyed. Then I looked up and saw the smoke detector that we had forgotten about……in the hall with free access to the smoky air. I grabbed a rag and started waving it around……it didn’t help. Igrabbed a step stool nearby and Kris climbed up and disconnected the alarm. And blissfully, silence once again reigned.

Kris ran up the back stairs to let our renters know that the house was not on fire. They exchanged a short conversation on kitchen adventures and Kris came back down, somewhat pink and very embarrassed.

About this time is when the hysterical laughter set in but, for some reason, I seemed to find it a bit funnier than Kris did. If we had just disconnected the hall detector first, we could probably have averted all the wailing.We set about trying to air the place out with frequent bouts of hysterics between mortified discussions of different aspects of the episode. We opened our lone window in the kitchen and I went to the top of the front stairs and opened the door, along with the garage door, in hopes of drawingthe foul smelling air up and out. Kris set up her fan in the hall to try to stir the air and I turned on the fan in the microwave above the stove.

We then retreated to our rooms to try to calm down a bit. "Why?" Kris asked. "Why would I not turn off the burner?"I explained to her that not only had the burner been on, it had been on as high as it would go. "Oh. That would explain it then. I thought that I had turned it off but evidently didn’t turn it all the way,"" she said.

A mere 20 to 30 minutes later, she declared that she had, in fact, turned it off and had no idea how it could possibly have turned itself back on. ……more hysterical laughter on my part. She ranted on for a bit about how her Teflon frying pan is probably ruined.

"Will it ever fry another egg? Another pancake? Another quesadilla?" she mournfully wondered. I advised her against cooking before she leaves the house in the morning, for fear that the house would no longer be standing by the time we got back."What would you do without me?" I asked her.

"Well," she said, "I’d wait for the smoke detector."

Sometime later, Kris opened my door and said, "You just wait. You just wait until it’s your turn. And then I’m going to laugh. I’m going to laugh harder than anyone. All two of us."

It was at least a full hour later before I remembered my original mission–A drink. That must have been a God given thirst.

Putting out Fires in Kentucky...

Sharon