I almost DIED last night!!

After I posted yesterday's blog at 3am this morning, I went about doing my end-of-night things, which includes logging on to WoW and scanning the auction house, and putting up anything that I was going to sell, which can take quite a while.  While I was doing this, Husband decided he was going to make some ramen, because what's better at 3:30am than ramen?  Nothing, apparently.  So he puts a pan on the stove with some water in it, and goes back into the bedroom.

A few minutes later, I smell something weird.  At first I thought that maybe he was using a burner that hadn't been used since the last time I cleaned the stove, and that it was just the smell of the cleaner burning off.  That thought lasted for about a half-second, when my brain reminded me that it didn't smell like burning cleaner, it smelled more like candle smoke.  I happened to have a candle burning directly in front of me (Village Candle's Creamy Vanilla, go buy one!   They are awesome!!) but it wasn't excessively smoky or anything, so I had another half-second of confusion.  Then I decided I should probably just go check to see what the smell was, so I got up and went into the kitchen.

The stove was ON FIRE.  Husband had started the wrong burner, and the one he actually started was sitting underneath the pizza box that had been left there after last night's dinner.  I would like to think that I handled it with grace and calm, but it actually kind of went down like this...

Me: AHHH!!  Um, babe?  Um, FIIIIREEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!  AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!  [stares at flames and waits for Husband to do something.]

Husband:  Oh crap!!  [takes a deep breath and blows on the fire, scattering fire and cardboard all over the countertop]

Me:  DON'T BLOW ON IT!!!!  USE THE THING!!  [so articulate, I know... the "thing" was the oven mitt... I wanted him to beat the fire with it to put it out.]

Naturally he didn't understand what I was saying, but he grabs the flaming pizza box and drags it across the countertop and into the sink, leaving a trail of burning embers and ash everywhere.  Then we just kind of stood there in shock, staring at the mess everywhere.  I opened the back door, and he opened the kitchen window, trying to air out the smoke which was really thick, then we both looked up at the fire alarm which was eerily silent.  It's a scary way to learn that your fire alarm doesn't work.

Husband started cleaning up the mess, grabbing the pizza box (which was still on fire in the sink) and trying to put it in a garbage bag.  I had to remind him that he couldn't put it in the garbage bag while it was still on fire.  That would just cause more fire.  After all the fire and embers were successfully out, we started trying to clean up all the ash.  If you've ever had the misfortune to clean up ash from a countertop, it's not a fun process.  It disintegrates as soon as you touch it, and then one small flake of ash becomes a giant black smear across the counter.  It took half a roll of paper towels and the last of my kitchen cleaner to clean up the mess.  I didn't get a picture of the mess before we started cleaning it, but here's one towards the end of it.

It still smells like smoke this morning, but thankfully we didn't die, although Husband tried his hardest.

So, after saying I never have anything interesting to say on Twitter, I definitely did last night...