I'm The Reason I Can't Have Nice Things

If my kitchen had just one door, I would find a sign that says “Warning, cook is dangerous to herself, the general population, and the food groups the FDA holds sacred”.  Well, maybe not.  That’s a bit long, and hard to read when you’re pushing through the door with something on fire.

I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.  Well, I used to.  I lived alone before I was married, and I loved it.  When my now ex-husband moved in, I still did a fair amount of cooking, but we’d started sharing kitchen duties since I worked retail, and often times he’d be home before I was.  Then came that fateful day when I served whatever it was I had made for dinner.  The ex took a bite, smacked his lips, turned and said “You know, your cooking is always so bland.”.  Fine, fancy pants, put your chef hat on.  The KP duties are yours. It was after that meal, I didn’t cook for a very long time.  


Fast forward a year or two.  When we bought that house of ours back in 2004, I wanted to get a dog.  I’d always loved having them growing up, but my ex had never had anything other than cats before.  He was skeptical, but we agreed on a medium sized dog.  In my post-adoption, delusional state, we bought a dog kennel for her.  I thought that we’d be keeping her in it when we were at work, or were out of the house for any length of time.  Well, that plan went up in smoke.  Literally.

 

You know how people can be stubborn about only making one trip from the car to the kitchen when they’re shopping for groceries?  Yeah, I’m one of those people.  We’d been to the super center and gotten groceries, sundries, and maybe even some tires now that I think about it.  I carried in my load, which consisted of 3 bags on each arm and a medium sized, plastic dog crate in my hands.  The ex had made a trip before me, so all the counters were full.  So, I put the kennel on the stove because it was right in front of me, and turned around to put the bags on kitchen table.  That was where I went wrong.  


I wandered out of the kitchen for some forgotten reason, and the next thing I know, the smoke alarm is going off.  I race back into the kitchen to find the bottom of the dog kennel melted on the burner, and this acrid smoke billowing out of the ruined remains.  Apparently, when I put the kennel on the stove, I pushed it back in such a way as to turn on the front, and largest burner.  Cue me racing around trying to get the melted hunk of plastic off the stove, making sure it’s not on fire, and getting it outside so the smoke and smell will clear.


Oh, the smell was awful! It was sour and smothering.  In the midst of all of this, my ex is standing in the living room, laughing, shaking his head, and telling me we need to get the dog so we can all get away from what could be toxic fumes.  All the while, the smoke alarm is still going off, and I’m just positive that fire engines will come screaming down the street any moment.  So, I’m now carrying around this smoking kennel, trying to get to the front door, mind racing trying to come up with an explanation for *why* the kennel is on fire when the ex tells me to go out the sliding glass door in the kitchen.  Oh.  Heh.  Yeah.  That makes sense.


So, there we are, standing on the back deck, the kennel snapping and popping from the rapid cooling from the garden hose bath, back door wide open, smoke billowing out of every window in the house, and fire alarm still screaming.  I’m still running around with my hair on fire (figuratively) about how the fire department will be there any minute.  The ex tells me that the alarm doesn’t magically summon them, it just lets us know that there’s smoke.  It’s still up to us to call.  (Well, the house had an alarm system.  I didn’t know how that worked at the time.)  Then he looks at me and asks The Question.  “What did you do to set that on fire?”.  


After explaining what happened, I think the response I got was for him to shake his head, tell me I’m a menace, and he walked back into the house to shut the windows and clean sticky, stinking plastic off the stovetop.  He wasn’t going to trust me with anything stronger than water, so cleaning products were out.  


The best part about this whole mess?  We’d been homeowners for less than two months.  Howdy neighbors!  We’re gonna be THAT couple on the block.