Written April 4, 2025
Hello Dear Readers,
Yesterday flirted with disaster. Picture this: thunder rolled for days, turning our backyard into a soggy jungle. I had been patiently waiting for a window of calm to tame the lawn, and when it finally came, I seized the moment like a caffeinated gardener on a mission. I mowed with determination—until our battery-powered mower gave me the silent treatment. Twice.
Fast forward through two days of yard-wrangling, and suddenly, it was time to cook. That’s when the real storm hit.
Now, in my usual routine, I like to multitask like a culinary ninja. Pot of water on the stove, shower while it boils, then toss in the pasta like I’m on a cooking show. But yesterday, in my post-mowing haze, I made a fatal error—I turned on the wrong burner. The one with the oven mitt hanging out like it owned the place.
As I was finishing my shower, my wife burst in, wide-eyed and clearly not there to compliment my shampoo. “There’s a fire in the kitchen!” she shouted. Not exactly the lunchtime ambiance we had planned.
You see, my wife works from home, partly because her coworkers treat COVID precautions like optional side quests. After being exposed twice (yes, twice!) by colleagues who showed up sick and generous with their germs, she decided home was the safest battlefield. “Protect yourself because no one else will,” she says. She’s not wrong.
So there she was, taking a break from work, checking on me—and thank goodness she did. The oven mitt had caught fire on the countertop. She sprang into action like a firefighter in yoga pants, extinguishing the flames before they spread. The alarm blared, smoke wafted upstairs, and ash floated down like confetti at the world’s worst party.
The only casualty: one very crispy oven mitt. A faithful kitchen companion of over a decade, now reduced to charcoal couture. Upstairs, ash decorated everything like a light snowfall—but the damage could have been so much worse.
I felt awful. I scared my wife, created a mess, and unintentionally cremated her beloved mitt. Lesson learned: fire and showers do not mix. From now on, I will not leave the stove unattended, even for a pasta-boiling head start. Today’s plan? Vacuum the ash, apologize profusely, and maybe buy a fireproof timer… or a new mitt. Or both. Because, as it turns out, almost burning down the house is a terrible way to make lunch.