Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Remember when my kitchen wall was on fire?

All I wanted was some tea...  Today was not my day.


I am a property manager and my apartment door leads right in to my office.  So from time to time while I'm at work I will leave the door open for funsies.  It's a good thing I left it open today.  I turned on the stove to heat up my kettle for a bit of afternoon tea and went back to my desk to get some work done.  A couple minutes later I smelled something that reminded me of a campfire and I thought, "That's nice."  Then something triggered in my brain that the smell was coming from my apartment.  When I entered the kitchen, my favorite oven mitt was on fire along with the wall.  (The kettle wasn't anywhere near warm by the way.  Maybe I turned the wrong element on...)  Thankfully I was able to put the fire out.  Sadly I lost my beloved red gingham double oven mitt and it is now lying in the garbage.  Rest in peace, my faithful oven mitt.  You kept my hands and wrists safe for over 10 years.  *Sniff.  *Tear.  I was able to remove any traces of the burn from the wall with my magic eraser (seriously those things are awesome!) with the exception of the two large bubbles that formed under one of the many layers of paint whilst on fire.  Thankfully this apartment is so ghetto-old and has been painted a gizillion times that no damage touched the actual wall and I think with a bit of touch up paint, no one will be the wiser.  Yes, the smoke detector went off.  No, the fire department was not called.  But as for the smell in my kitchen and parts of my apartment? Well, to paraphrase Ralphie Wiggum... it smells like burning.

1 comment:

Allen Hoffman said...

Oh, I’m so sorry about your oven mitt. My wife felt the same when we had to dispose of ours because of old age. Anyway, glad to hear that the damage was not that serious. If you didn’t notice the fire, it could have been worse. Have you checked it for smoke damage? Well, this may serve as a reminder not to leave your stove unattended.