Last weekend, I decided to start tackling the clutter mess that has accumulated in our house over the winter. I binge cleaned the kids' rooms, purged the hall closet and collected a few substantially-sized garbage bags full of winter coats, hats and mittens that are still in good shape and that we no longer use. I also started a small oven fire.
It was an honest mistake. Really. I had just set the cleaning cycle in the oven because we had spillage from a delicious meal my husband made earlier in the week and, when I stopped by the kitchen to grab a glass of water, I noticed that the kitchen was smokier than usual. There is always a certain amount of smoky burn off during our oven self-cleaning cycle because I like to put off cleaning the oven until it's absolutely embarrassing. As I noticed the smoke pouring out of the oven vent, I, while holding our five-month old daughter, I flicked the oven light switch to see what was happening in our filthy oven. Six inch flames greeted me from the oven window. Panic ensues.
When I am not in a crisis, I have an optimistically false idea of how I react in a crisis. I like to think that I'm cool and collected and that I manage to hold everything together in a way that people would admire and jealously wish they too reacted in such a way. The reality is, I freak out and become useless. It there was a zombie movie about my life, I would be the extra in hysterics that would die in the first scene.
Luckily, my husband was home and he saved the day. I had, in a panic, thrown open the patio doors and unplugged the oven because my idea was to move the flaming oven on to the deck to have it burn down outside. My husband who turned off the cleaning cycle, calmly let me know that the fire was out and that it probably wasn't a good idea to drag a hot oven across the floor. He was right. Once the oven cooled down enough for the door to unlock, I had to scrape the oven out by hand before starting the self-clean again. So much for me trying to avoid touching the dirty oven.
I have learned two things from this incident:
1) We need a fire extinguisher
2) I should never turn the self-cleaning cycle on the oven and then leave the house. If, I'm home, at least I know that my house is burning down.
Enjoy Spring cleaning Prince George and don't burn your house down.
