Close Call

I seriously had a close call with a fire in the kitchen earlier tonight. I was in the process of making our dinner and everything was going as it should, smoothly. My meat was seasoned and browned, the water was boiling and waiting on the noodles. I also had water boiling for some good old fashioned sweet tea. As I began to poor my noodles into the salted boiling water something happened, still not sure what, but the bag of noodles collapsed in my hand. Noodles went everywhere! I turned my back on the chaos at the stove for one second, looking for something to use that would help in cleaning them up quickly. All it took was that one second for some noodles to catch fire. FIRE!!!

Let me tell you folks, fire freaks me out. In. A. Big. Way!!! No, I'm not exaggerating. Violet was working on an art project at the table when the chaos hit. I somehow managed to stay calm (thank you God) but the stress was just barely contained under the surface. My immediate thought was to grab a glass of water to douse the little fire with. Amazingly enough, my brain kicked into gear and I remembered that water and electricity do not mix well. Lord knows what other problems we would have had if I'd gone with my initial thoughts!

I remembered we have a fire extinguisher under our sink and so I whipped that baby out. It took me two seconds to figure out how to use it. I aimed the nozzle right in front of the small fire and gave the handle a little squeeze. It didn't take much for it to do its job and quickly put that fire out. After things were squared away in the kitchen I threw open our patio door and every window in our place. I wanted the horrid smell to get out of our place fast. And, I was praying that our alarms wouldn't go off, thus setting off the sprinkler system. Oye, just imagining that makes me weak at the knees.

You may or may not be surprised by how just one tiny discharge of an extinguisher can send out enough spray that will coat every surface in your kitchen. I had only sprayed on the burner that the little fire was on, no where else. But the spray turns into a fine powder that will float all over your kitchen surfaces. Before an hour had passed I had a fine layer of powder covering every surface of my kitchen. So, I got to clean my kitchen from top to bottom tonight. Oh, and I also washed the cat's food and water bowls and cleaned Flippy's tank (our beta fish). I couldn't have them eating/drinking/swimming in that stuff!

Needless to say, the yummy meal I had been preparing for my family ended up being eaten by our disposal and we had take-out (ugh). I get to try this all over again tomorrow, yeah for me! This is my first fire in the kitchen experience and I'm praying it'll be my last. It's no wonder though why I don't like cooking. Anyone care to send us some meals via Fed-Ex? My family and I sure would be very appreciative.