We took a break from watching "Saved by the Bell" to put on pants and go to the gas station on the corner to buy snacks. I wore the "House of Dereon" head scarf I won at the Tyra Banks show, and a pair of sweatpants that I was informed after we left the store that have a hole in the back. We each bought candy and ice cream. My friend at the gas station did not seem amused by our hysterical laughter.

I lack the willpower and concentration required to ascertain this googly, but I suspect toasters account for an inordinate number of household fires.

Ack!
In the two household fires I've witnessed, indeed, one was caused by a toaster oven (and Pop-Tart).

I'm glad to hear the snow finally served some decent purpose. And glad it ended all right.

I hope you're not trying to impugn the virtue of Pop Tarts there Miko.

Pop Tarts were, indeed, responsible for the only toaster fire I've ever witnessed. (Sorry, cillit.)

Congratulations! I think that's an awesome name for a small child.

I had no fire tonight. But about a week ago, I was broiling a steak, and after I took the steak out to rest for a few minutes, the tinfoil on which I broiled the steak caught fire, because the oven was still on in order to finish roasting the potatoes that I was planning on enjoying with the steak.

The potatoes achieved a rather gray cast from the aluminum smoke. I achieved a rather gray cast from opening the broiler and seeing that my tinfoil was on fire. I don't handle kitchen fires very well -- I just start thinking, "Help! There's a fire!" but there was no one other than the cat to help me, and she's not very good with her thumbs. I opened the broiler drawer once and saw the flames and closed the broiler drawer, hoping they would go away. I opened the broiler drawer again to see if the flames had gone away, and they hadn't, so I closed the broiler drawer again in order to gain time to think. I opened the broiler drawer again and batted at the flames with oven mitts; that didn't work, but I came up with the brilliant plan of smothering the fire with a pot lid.

That worked. I have not yet attempted to do anything about the melted aluminum that dripped into the broiler pan.

I try to avoid recipes that require a flambee, and I've learned to turn the fire off before adding alcohol to anything. I don't mind mice, or bugs, but if there were a chair in my kitchen and I ever wore an apron, I'd very definitely jump on that chair and wring that apron and squeal any time anything in my kitchen caught on fire.

I went over to my friends' house for mac and cheese and to listen to the returns on the radio. While I was there, a "wintery mix" fell from the sky and turned the highway into a shiny ice slide. I drove home white knuckled about an hour ago at 25 mph and promised my friends I'd IM when I got home just so they'd know I was safe. The trip seems windier from inside the car, really.

As I was reading your comment, Jess, I thought "mmmm. Mac and cheese", then I got to "wintery mix", and thought, "oh! I want to hear that wintery mix!" :)

Glad you made it home safe and sound.

My kitchen fire story has to do with a wok. And, er, checking email just for one tiny second while the oil got up to temperature.

Don't do that. No.

A coworker at my last job loved to cook cheddar cheese onto her bagels in the toaster oven, and the cheese would melt down and drip all over the coils. One day it caught on fire, big leaping flames. And we did just what you did: carried it outside and filled it with snow. Worked like a charm, but the office stunk for days.

Tonight I got up the nerve to ask a stranger if I could take a self-portrait with him. It wasn't even a real random-person-off-the-street kind of stranger, but someone that an old coworker introduced to me at the coffee shop. I was still nervous, but think I need to get over that. I have decided to approach at least 100 strangers (but dear Lord, not all at once) for photos, and document the process. This whole idea scares me.

Any prop empowers me to accost strangers, clip board, camera, funny looking bird--

← I got you some absinthe. || So, please raise your hand if you also found beef in your driveway today!? Anyone? →

These things are obviously linked by tiny fire.

Um. i got honey on the ceiling once.
Squeezed way too hard.

Oh, and i roasted kudzu in an oven. Never do that or you will get a blackened acrylic shower bath.

Bet honey still remembers that fondly.

Bet honey's still there.

i wanna fill things with snow and make them all better, too!

Pop Tarts were, indeed, responsible for the only toaster fire I've ever witnessed.

Scandalous lies.

I once had a toaster oven fire that was solved in the exact same way! Except we opened a window and threw the flaming oven out into the snow, which was exciting and made the kids very happy indeed. I think it's the preferred method for toaster oven fires; I have no idea what you're supposed to do if your toaster oven catches fire in July.

My younger brother and I deliberately melted aluminum foil to make coins. On the kitchen stove. Yes, the aluminum would, on occasion, catch fire. No, we never told mum what we were doing.

The first kitchen oil fire I saw was in my grandmother's kitchen, and she took a pot lid and put it out. Same with the one in my mother's kitchen.

I've had hot pads and towels catch on fire (in July) and just toss them in the sink or stomp them on the floor.

One time in college I was asleep and my roommates managed to set an electric burner on fire with flour. I don't know how. One of them freaked and was fanning the damn thing with a towel. The other walked in and literally blew it out.

The only recent scare I've had was when Younger Boy tried to get away from me in the Nursery School parking lot - into the path of an oncoming car. I caught him in time, and the mom driving the car saw him and stopped.

Me and my cousins used to use grandpa's soldering iron to melt scraps of solder and other metals. Very quietly.

I love you guys.


Years ago, we were cooking in the postage stamp sized kitchen of my apartment. My boyfriend left a roll of paper towels too close to the burner, and it caught fire. I panicked - my kids were in the tub, what do I do, what do I DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????!!!!!!!!!! He smartly threw a dish towel on it, then threw it in the sink and drowned it. I was a bit beside myself, to say the least.

A coworker at my last job loved to cook cheddar cheese onto her bagels in the toaster oven, and the cheese would melt down and drip all over the coils.

Yeah, that's what happened here. After The Fella sprang so heroically to the rescue and then so sweetly told me not to blame myself for the fire, I couldn't bear to tell him the truth: it wasn't my tortillas that caused the problem; it was the built-up greasy residue from his many many melty cheese sandwiches... that residue I've repeatedly asked him to clean out of the toaster oven for fear that it will, oh, catch fire.

Shhhh. Don't tell him. Now no one needs to clean it.