FIre Marshall Catherine

I should officially be prohibited from using any type of fire, be it big or small. 

Since moving to Singapore, I have fallen in love with the vile of oils sold at Bath and Body Works. The oil goes into a little dish, and is heated from below by a tiny little tea candle. I had purchased an official oil warmer from Bath and Body, but our idiot movers put it into permanent storage. Thinking I was being creative, I made my own oil warmer with a few supplies form IKEA. I found a little glass dish to hold the oil, which I would then place on top of a ceramic candle holder that has holes down the sides. 

Yesterday, Scott came home from a trip and I wanted the house to be nice and clean and smelling good. I set up my little oil contraption and had it burning well before Scott got home. When he walked in the door he said, "Wow! It smells good in here!" (Success).

A while later I came into the family room and noticed a distinct plastic smell. Well, a distinct burning plastic smell. I ran over to my oil contraption, which I stupidly had placed next to our replacement TV, and realized I had trouble. 

I blew on the flame to put it out, but instead it turned into a mini bonfire. Crud! Turns out the candle had over-heated the glass dish which had cracked as a result, dripping oil onto the fire, causing it to burn out of control. The thing was so stinking close the the TV that I was rather limited into how to deal with the problem. There was no way I could possibly pick up the thing without torching in my hands. Trying to problem solve, I ran upstairs and grabbed the spray bottle I use to do the boys' hair. Of course, my action in running upstairs caught the boys' attention who immediately started to yell, "Fire! Fire!" Please be quiet! I do not want Scott up here until I get this under control! 

I started to spritz the fire, but the drastic change in temperature caused the glass the start exploding. For fear of a shard of glass shooting into our only other TV, I grabbed a pair of oven mitts and decided to take one for the team....actually, it was more like I was willing to sacrifice my fingers for the good of the television. Just as I picked up my mini-fireplace, Scott came upstairs asking what was going on. I rushed by him (but no too quickly because it aggravated the flames) and into the kitchen. Not wanting Scott to think it was an emergency, I dug deep within my self to not yell in pain when my fingers started to sizzle. 

Luckily disaster was averted, and Scott advised me it might not be a good idea to have any fire near the television. Lesson learned. 

When I turned on the water in the sink to extinguish the fire, the glass started to pop like crazy. It was a shockingly loud noise, which caused me to have a flash back of two days prior.....

Andrew was home from school with a mild fever. He had asked me if he could have an egg sandwich the next day for school. I decided to prepare ahead, and put six eggs on the stove to boil.

I went out to check on Andrew and make sure he was comfortable. Once he was taken care of, I started to pick up the house and do various chores. While I was loading the washing machine, an enormous storm erupted. The thunder was so loud, that the building literally shook. However, it was all good since I love storms! During the storm, I made a couple of phone calls to solidify some Thanksgiving plans, and then I went to check my email to square away the final details for Jacob's class party next week. 

While I was sitting on the couch composing my emails, it sounded like the washing machine was acting up. I could hear strange grinding sounds coming from the kitchen. They weren't super loud, and I was quite certain that it had something to do with the storm. About five minutes later, it sounded like one of the windows in the kitchen had been blown out; it was an extremely loud crack followed by some kind of popping noises. The noise was so loud that I ran into the kitchen expecting to find that the washing machine had exploded or, as mentioned, we had lost a window. When I turned the corner I was relieved to see that all the windows were intact and that the washing machine was doing just fine. Another loud popping noise caused me to jump and swing around. 

White and yellow was splattered all over the walls, on top of the kitchen counter, and on the ceiling. The eggs! I forgot about the eggs! The water had boiled away to nothing, and the eggs were being torched my the "high" flame I had burning. 

Wow...I had no idea eggs could explode. 

Once again, I was running around with oven mitts incapable of protecting my hands from the heat....and a grande finale explosion when I tried to put out the problem with running water.

I told my friend downstairs to move because at the rate I am going, this building is destined to burn down.