fire!

(in which Ruth learns the value of cleanliness and the danger of multi-tasking...)

As if writing a PhD dissertation, finding a new job, and moving weren't enough to try to balance all at once, I apparently thought it would be good to have a Real Emergency throw into the mix for the fun of it. On Easter Sunday I woke up and wanted to have a hard-boiled egg because I needed something hearty for breakfast to sustain me through several hours at church. To save some time, I turned on the burner to start heating the pot of water+egg and figured I could jump in the shower really quick - by the time I got out the pot would be boiling and ready to take off for the hard-cooking.

When I got out of the shower a very few minutes later, I had a sense that something wasn't quite right, so I dashed to the kitchen dressed in a towel and without my glasses on (aka I was pretty darn blind). What I found was a scene sort of like I've seen in movies with the entire apartment FILLED with smoke. However, it was still quite apparent that there was something aflame on the stove. Based on the location of the flame, I realized immediately what had happened: I had turned on the wrong burner and something sitting on that burner had caught fire. Because, after all, a stovetop is a great place to set random flammable things, right? Of course not, but in the midst of the dissertation writing and other such things I had been quite remiss in actually cleaning up anything. Thus, the kitchen counter was filled with dishes, and that meant "stuff" was now being piled on the stove.

I didn't want to sit and ponder the stupidity of what had led up to this dangerous situation, but I did realize it was important to think clearly and not freak out. I immediately thought, "I don't know what's on fire, so I should not put water on it. There is a fire extinguisher just outside my apartment in the building's entry hall. I should go get that." I then immediately thought, "I don't have any clothes on, and I really ought not to go running out into the hall naked."

So I dashed into the bedroom and found my robe, then found my glasses, then grabbed the fire extinguisher, then put out the fire, turned off the burner (which was not so bright, because since the fire had just been occurring in front of the burner control knob, it was really hot, so I burned my thumb), and then stood back and surveyed the mess.

I would love to show you a picture of what had happened, but I was entirely in NO MOOD to take a photo to document the disaster. I was too overwhelmed by the stove and counter full of dishes which were now blanketed in the yellow fire extinguisher stuff...and the fact that without a doubt I would have to clean up this whole mess, which would not be fun. It didn't get much better when I went wandering into the other rooms of the apartment and found EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING...in EVERY room - living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom) sprinkled with ash that had evolved from the whatever-it-was that had burned up on the stove. And that was another troubling thing...I had NO idea what had burned. I could tell from the remains and the smell that it was plastic, but I couldn't recall anything plastic that I had had that would be the size that the large mass of goonk now carbon-fused to the burner element and stovetop represented.

ashes, ashes...

And Joelle...! Fortunately, she was fine and didn't seem too fazed by any of this. I found her and picked her up, and then she started freaking out. I realized that when she was on the ground the smoke was too high for her to smell, but when I lifted her up into the smoke, she was quite aware that something was wrong. So I decided she was probably in the best spot by just being on the floor. She did, however, get a little bit dirty from hopping around on the floor that was covered in ash.

the bunny feet are notsupposed to be black!

Next I opened the windows and door and turned on the central fan and the bathroom fan and stove exhaust fan. Oh, and after the fire had been extinguished the smoke detector finally started going off (...not very safe, eh?), so I had to deal with making that shut up. I put on some clothes and called some friends and everyone was at church because it was Easter so I left messages and so I started cleaning, beginning with Joelle's cage because I wasn't too keen on her eating the ash.

Fortunately, one friend called me back and came over to help clean the stove and kitchen. She really likes cleaning, so she was the perfect person to have over. By the time she left a couple hours later, the kitchen looked fairly normal except for the huge chunk of plastic melted onto the stove.

it's what's for dinner

By this time I was REALLY hungry since my breakfast had been long forgotten about (I think the egg actually was cooked, having been sitting next to a fire...but I didn't quite feel like investigating), so I hauled myself out to my favorite little diner where they made me some lovely eggs over hard with ham and a yummy Belgian waffle with grapefruit juice. No fires occurred. On the way home I picked up a huge supply of cleaning equipment and set to work little by little.

In the weeks that have followed I have restored the stove to its normal appearance. With the help of a razor blade and a lot of determination, I was able to scrape off the melted plastic, which I eventually realized had come from an empty Simply Orange container. This removal fortunately occurred before my landlord came over to assess the damage, so he wasn't too mad and only made me pay to get a new burner element - that was not something I was even going to attempt to clean. The fire helped me jump-start my leaving-this-apartment cleaning, so that was nice. It also helped me identify a number of spiderwebs that I had not been aware of.

spooky

All's well that ends well, and I'm thankful that I, Joelle, and all my stuff are safe. In the future I'll attempt to be more clean and only do one thing at a time...