Burning down the house

So I tried to burn our house down tonight …

See, Kates and I have this thing with pizza and popcorn for supper on Thursday nights. She has her exercise class at the rec center and it’s my job to have a pizza ready by the time she comes home around 8 and we watch our Thursday night shows. Usually she takes care of popping the popcorn once she’s home …

Well tonight, I finished the pizza a little early. Kates wasn’t home yet, but I figured I’d just let her pop the popcorn in the microwave -- like she always does so well -- because surely I‘d find a way to screw it up. But then I thought, c’mon how hard can it be to pop a little popcorn? … I grabbed a popcorn package from the pantry, glanced at it for the instructions and read ‘4 minutes’ to microwave. …I set the package inside the microwave, closed the door and set the timer at 3:45. I was taking my first bite of pizza -- just as Kates was walking in the door …

I’m such an idiot.

We were watching the end of ‘Joey’ and enjoying our pizza, oblivious to what was happening in the kitchen.

Then, Kates suddenly shouts, ‘Oh my God!’ I look at the kitchen, seeing smoke pouring out of it and wonder out loud, ‘What’d I do?’ as we jump to our feet and rush toward the kitchen.

…Kates spills her water all over the coffee table in the rush. I open the microwave and grab a towel to wave as the smoke alarm starts blaring. Kates breaks for the front door to open it and begins airing out the house, which is now smelling mightily of smoke. I go for the back door as I’m choking from smoke inhalation.

Finally Kates pulls the blackened, burnt popcorn from the microwave and lays it on the grass outside our back door. It was only then that we’re able to break somewhat of smile, realizing the magnitude of what just nearly happened.

We had the fans blowing for almost an hour afterward and all the windows have been open longer. We missed half ‘The Apprentice’ spraying and cleaning the smoke stains from the microwave, and spread our magazines and newspapers around the floor to dry from Kates’ spilled water.

…When all the excitement died, Kates reminds me of the disclaimer on the popcorn package that reads something like ‘times differ for each microwave’ and all I needed to do was push the ‘popcorn’ button, which puts a sensor on the package and pops the popcorn to perfection.

Yep, Kates will be doing the popcorn popping from now on.