Stupid Human Tricks: Only You Can Prevent Oven Fires

I had seen the future and I knew what it held. Yet, like Cassandra in Greek myth, the vision of what was To Be remained sadly unheeded.

It all started because my young cat Harry, who is normally happy to spend his day whipping around in circles trying to catch that always-surprising wiggly thing on the back of his butt, suddenly proved to me he was actually a lot smarter than I had imagined.

At some point, he'd figured out a way to break into the Tupperware containers containing his kibble. Which is remarkable considering I have had trouble getting into them myself.

Perhaps chasing your tail hones the reflexes. I don't know.

Anyway, because of the catburglary, I was forced to put the containers of kibble into a place where someone without thumbs could not go: my oven. Harry and his partner in crime, Alice, had already figured out how to open all of the kitchen cabinets, and I imagine when I get my next credit card statement I'll see they've also run up a whole bunch of internet bills-- Ebaying scratching post mansions, Netflixing The Truth About Cats and Dogs, stuff like that.

The oven had been my last forbidden locale.

Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew there was a risk I would forget that my oven had become a giant kibble storage unit and Bad Things Would Happen.

Last evening was the night of Very Bad Things.

I think it went wrong because I had steak on my mind. I'd been looking forward to it all day like a rattlesnake sits coiled for an unwary hiker's leg. So when I whisked through the door in the evening, I was a whirlwind of pre-steak activity and excitement.

I put down my stuff, grabbed the kibble from the oven, fed Alice and Harry, put the kibble back, went upstairs and changed, came back down and...

Preheated the oven.

Clearly, I have the short-term memory of a hummingbird on speed.

A movie, I thought. A movie would be nice to watch along with my Savory Steaky Joy. So I went to my DVD cabinet and began to peruse the selections.

Soon the cats were acting funny, as if they seemed to be hearing something I wasn't, which I didn't think much of at first, since it can be the house settling, a car door outside, a stinkbug two floors up, or two spiders duking it out in the basement.

Until I noticed the sound of indoor hail raining down.

Alas, it was not a meteorological system sweeping through my home. It was the sound of a two-pound bag of freshly-roasted cat food escaping its rapidly-melting Tupperware jail and testing the bonds of gravity.

The smell of plastic and hot turkey-fiber nuggets wafted in great black clouds. And as I shrieked, turned off the oven and began to say a few words of mourning for my beloved pink vintage Tupperware, Alice and Harry were summoning up their appetites like two regulars at Old Country Buffet.

So there I was, trying to keep them from sucking down potentially chemically-coated kibble like small, furry Dysons, while trying to peel plastic off my oven grill before it stuck forever.

Of course, devoted blogger that I am, I also had to take photos. Yes, for the loss of vintage pink Tupperware, one sheds a tear. For personal enlightenment to one's own deep failings, one finds new understanding. A blog post, however, that is really good stuff. 

(Remember: only you can prevent oven fires. Only you.)

PS- I never did get the steak.

The Fourth-and-a-Half Sense

I smell dead people.

Actually, no. I probably wouldn't.

I mean even if a spectral Bruce Willis and I found ourselves hanging out in a mafia meat locker after a particularly busy week, I think we'd have a better chance of ol' Brucie announcing, "Phew, this is a good place for a Plug-In" before I ever would.

I am allergy-impaired, you see. And I think I actually prefer it that way. Because a brief moment of allergy-meds-induced, smell-based lucidity last evening led me on a bloodhound-like chase that I don't care to repeat.

I mean, you people with normal smellerificness-- do you go around sniffing your home entertainment system very often?

My money is on "no, only on special occasions."

See, I'd been running around the house finishing up a few things post-dinner. I sat down to watch a DVD, and then...

"I smell something on fire. Something electrical. Or metal. Or burnt dead dog. Or maybe spareribs."

(Cut me some slack-- having not smelled anything since about January, I lack your ninja-like Smell Precision Reflexes.)

There were a number of possible culprits in the area for this:

• The broiler of the stove I had used for dinner. Could sirloin steak grilled on a metal pan smell like the Sony warehouse going up in flames?

• A candle in a votive. Had I been freshening my house with toxic candle fumes, thus explaining my penchant for eccentric narrative?

• The heating system. Was she gonna blow, Kiptin?

To my fleetingly clear sinus, which had had only clocked a total of two full hours actual smell-training, it really could have been anything. Or nothing.

Well, I sniffed around. I stood on the heat vents and sniffed them in a pajama-clad, non-blonde, nasal-oriented version of Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch. (It smelled heaty.)

I stuck my head in the oven and sniffed. (It smelled meaty.)

I blew out and sniffed the possibly aromatic candle. (Nope, smelled like birthday disappointment.)

And then I started sniffing my TV, cable box and DVD player.

Because, in spite of the fact that the thing sounded great, the picture was clear, and there were no flames licking the TV cabinet, it was possible that there was some quiet inner-operative brush fire that would rip across the country to wipe out Malibu unless I stood there for the next half hour, strategically smelling it, while simultaneously missing my program.

What I finally concluded was that my nose was experiencing an ol-factory hallucination due to the allergy meds. I didn't fully believe the theory, of course. But we lie to ourselves to get through the night...

Preferably so that night is not spent sleeping propped up with one's nose stuck to the widescreen.

Yet this morning, as I came downstairs and slurped the first cup of java for the day, the hallucination returned.

"Fire. I smell fire."

It was only as I'd been heading to work and locking the front door-- the smell gaining significant stink-momentum-- that I realized...

The neighbors next door have a wood-burning stove. They've lived next to me for at least three years, but this was the first time I'd actually be able to smell it burning.

I'd wasted 40 minutes of my life trying to locate a scent that wasn't even in my house.

So, I really can't wait until my nasal passages close up again. This extra sensory stimuli is really just too much to handle. The burden, it's too great.

I don't know how all of you fully-smelling people handle it with such grace.

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