Close call

Post Reply New Topic

I once left the milk out on the counter and I came home and it was sitting there and it spoiled I had to dumped it out. I had forgotten to put it away and I thought I did.

That's very impressive for an 8 year-old! Many adults would not have done so well in that situation. I wish I could say the mother's reaction surprises me, but at least your parents supported you.

The closest I've come to burning the house down was when I was heating some oil in a large sauce-pan on an electric stove. I normally did this in a metal one, but that was unavailable at the time, so I used a ceramic one. I was pretty sure I read "stovetop safe" or something like that on it. Bad idea #1! I was standing there watching it and just started walking towards the stove to put some other ingredients in when there was a loud bang and half of the saucepan jumped up! While I was still processing this, oil leaked out of the bottom half (which also cracked) and immediately caught fire. I turned off the stove, of course, but wasn't sure whether water would really help with an oil fire. I figured it at least wouldn't hurt. Bad idea #2! When I poured water on the flames they immediately tripled in size! Luckily, there was nothing too flammable nearby and the fire subsided without doing any permanent damage, but I went out and bought a fire extinguished and fire blanket for the kitchen afterwards!

(Post-mortem examination of the saucepan revealed it did not say it was stove-top safe. )

Thanks. I never really thought of it that way. It still doesn't feel like any real accomplishment. I was just pissed off that she blamed me for ruining the toaster. But I was bullied by a lot of the parents in the neighborhood in a way. Not overtly, they just blamed me for a lot of things that I didn't do.

Ah...... an Autopsy of an inanimate object....very Aspie!

OMG, I have done everything talked about in this thread. The overflowing the sink thing. I don't remember all the details, but it was a mess.

Once when moving stuff into a new apartment, I somehow put a telephone book on top of the stove and somehow managed to turn on the burner. I didn't even remember putting the phone book there, and I don't know how the burner got turned on. I must have brushed the controls on the front when I was stacking boxes in the kitchen. Fortunately I noticed it pretty quickly and the damage was minimal. But I did need the fire department to help me put out the burning stuff.

More recently a couple of years ago, I was boiling pasta on the stove, and fell asleep. I woke up five hours later with a really bad feeling. I ran upstairs where the kitchen is to find the place filled with heavy smoke, and the red hot pan still on the stove. The pasta was completely vaporized. Not a trace that there had even been anything in the pan. The broccoli I was steaming on top of it, was just black powder. I don't know why my landlord didn't throw me out over that one.

I started the toast, went to the living room, listened a while for it to pop up but soon forgot. 1/2 hour later I remembered, went to the kitchen, saw a cloud of smoke. I had to bring out my vintage fan collection.(a special interest)

I can't even count the number of times I have destroyed pans by putting food on to cook and then forgetting about having done so and going to bed.

Every time I would wake up to smoke throughout my home.

I have always had a fear that I would burn down my home because of that tendency. Thankfully I got a phone with a timer and eventually got an oven with a built-in timer. I did forget something afterward, but I was only boiling water, so the pot got really hot but nothing was destroyed.

I have never burned anything but have done the opposite before-put something in the oven, set an alarm on my phone for 1 hour later (it was a pie that took an hour to cook), gone back and discovered that I had forgotten to switch the oven on!

When I was at university, our entire halls of residence was evacuated because some guy who was drunk decided he wanted to dry off his wet shoe in the microwave! Lots of smoke!