Things I have learned today...

Things I have learned today :

1) I don’t think as well as I thought I would under emergency situations
2) The newly required (due to the suite addition) and installed hard-wired and interconnected smoke alarms do NOT go off with just a little smoke in the house
3) Even though I’ve been through fire extinguisher training (years ago and have a certificate to prove it) I need to renew my knowledge of how to operate a fire extinguisher
4) I should keep my box of baking soda out and/or more handy
5) I am NOT brilliant!
6) Burnt paper plate and burnt paper towel make the house smell like toasted marshmallows – YUM!

So here’s what happened…. I was fixin’ (lets southern it up a bit – like interviewing some backwoods nut after a tornado, or an earthquake as today's case may be) Z’s lunch today. I was defrosting frozen peas and carrots on a paper plate in the microwave, like I’ve done a million times before. Today I thought, “The microwave is soo much harder to clean on the end of our dining room table in our current multi-purpose room. I’ll just make less mess for myself to clean up by covering the defrosting peas and carrots in the microwave with a paper towel.” “ Brilliant! “, I thought. A little more thought on the front end and careful planning and preparation means less mess for me to clean up later. “Yay, me!”

So I continued to prepare Z’s lunch. Thankfully Gramma was not in the room or Z, you’ll see why I’m thankful for this in just a second. I turned around to see flames lighting up the inside of my microwave. “ Yikes! “ I think. (Panic and chaos mode-thinking take over. ) “Great. I can handle this. I think well under pressure.” I open the door of the microwave to discover it’s the paper towel that is in flames and the edges of the paper plate. The fire is spreading fast (remember, I’m giving the fire more air now by standing looking in the microwave and thinking all this). “ I’ll blow it out, “ I think. “Brilliant again,” I think. “It’ll be out quickly and no one will ever find out.“ The last thing I need in the room is Z yelling for firemen and Gramma only hearing part of it and panicking. The paper towel and paper plate aren’t much fuel for the fire. I begin to blow on the fire now – remember I’m standing with my face in the microwave (it’s electrical and plugged in) – blowing on burning paper. Anyone ever seen what happens to paper when it burns? Yep, that’s right. It burns quickly, rapidly and ignites other things. So as I’m blowing little bits of paper begin floating up and out of the microwave and the smoke and fire get WAY worse. “Oh no,” I think. “It’s not going out fast enough. Maybe if I blow on it more or harder I can make it quickly consume all the fuel and then safely extinguish itself.” (Yeah – cause that’s brilliant!) It’s in an enclosed space (remember I have the door of the microwave open while I’m thinking this) and the microwave is sitting on our wood dining room table pushed up against a wall. Another brilliant thought enters my head, “ I’ll just close the door and keep the fire inside the microwave”. Now I’m yelling at myself in my head for having been soo stupid, “What were you thinking? Blowing on a fire to extinguish it? Go get the kitchen fire extinguisher. That’s why you have it and you are brilliant again because you know right where it is and can get to it in no time easily.” Halfway to the fire extinguisher I stop and turn around to go back to the microwave. “Wait it’s in an electrical appliance. Does that make it an electrical fire? I had better go unplug the microwave (even though it’s not running) so the electrical fire doesn’t continue to get more fuel.” I stop myself on the way back to the microwave and turn around to head back to the fire extinguisher. “Electrical fires need extinguishers. Just go get the fire extinguisher – it’ll get the fire out for sure as long as you don’t hit the fire with soo much force you spread the fire by knocking it out of the microwave. “ Ahhhh, see? Another wave of brilliance returns – my fire extinguisher training is all coming back to me now. “Aim at the base of the fire from far back and walk in towards the fire while you are sweeping the hose from side to side.” I finally grab the fire extinguisher that is located under our kitchen sink (child lock on it) and walk back towards the microwave. “This is gonna make a mess!”, I think. (Remember I used the paper towel over the peas to KEEP from making a mess). I set the fire extinguisher down on a cabinet and halt my progress back to the microwave once more. I think, “baking soda extinguishes flames in ovens and I could shake it on the fire more gently than spraying a fire extinguisher into a microwave and who was I kidding…? I didn’t remember how to open and activate the fire extinguisher. By the time I read that and figured it out my whole house would be burnt down” (Ummmm how many times had I already walked back and forth in my kitchen trying to decide the best course of action for extinguishing this fire? )
So I proceed to open another cabinet (this one has no child safety lock) and rummage around for my baking soda. “Man! Why did I have to put it away soo well yesterday after I baked that banana bread? Oh wait, that box was almost empty. I have another box in the basement in my pantry.” (You see where this is going?) “I wonder if it would be quicker for me to run downstairs to the basement and grab that box of baking soda rather than try to find the open one in my cabinet?” “Ok, don’t be stupid!” I tell myself. (Like I’ve established a good track record of brilliance thus far with this event). “Don’t be worried about making a mess. But opening the microwave door and trying to shake baking soda on it might not put it out and might make it worse. You should just use the fire extinguisher…. You shouldn’t walk away from a fire” (now I’m arguing with myself in my head), “especially with other people in the house not knowing. Look at the fire at see if its gotten worse.”

“Ok” – so I walk towards the microwave again – with nothing in hand to help because I’ve set them both down on the cabinet in the kitchen. “I don’t see anything. Maybe the fire has blackened the window of the microwave?” I walk cautiously nearer the blazing inferno… “I still see nothing. Do I dare? What if it flashes out? Or backdrafts when I let more air in (cause everyone has seen that movie right?) My dependents still don’t know and are in danger of not getting out in time and dying in a fire and my husband is going to be mad at me that I didn’t watch out for them first and was walking back and forth thinking slowly and stupidly and killed us all in the process.”
“Oh wait….what’s that? Oh I can see the plate and peas and carrots. No more fire or smoke. It’s out! Yay! Crisis averted! Wow – I’m brilliant. That’s just what I meant to do….wait out the fire with my indecisiveness.” Then another alarming thought comes crashing into my head. “Oh no – hard wired smoke alarms are deafening. Must….keep….them….from….going…..off!” Now I’m not sure whether to run back to the microwave to keep the smoke inside to keep the smoke alarms from going off or continue on my way to turn the exhaust fan on. I decide I’m closer to the exhaust fan and scold myself for being soo indecisive and panicky. I reach the kitchen again and turn on the exhaust fan over the kitchen stove to high (cause that’ll REALLY make the difference)! THEN I head back to the microwave to close it but there isn’t any more smoke coming out of it. “Wow! I think all this time passed with my walking back and forth and look. No damage to the inside of the microwave. Yay! Yummmm….something smells like burnt marshmallows from a campfire. Oh I want some of those.”

Well at least a pleasant smell came out of this harrowing experience.