Sunday, May 11, 2008

Alarming (but not)

BEFORE

AFTER

On Saturday afternoon, Brenden decided to warm up a piece of crumb cake left over from breakfast. He put it on a plastic plate and put in the microwave, just like he's seen me do a million times. The tricky thing about microwaves is learning how long to cook things. Brenden decided to do it for 2 minutes. I was outside playing with June and when I came back in to check on the boys, I was immediately hit with a cloud of smoke so thick I couldn't see to the other side of the room. And the smell was so strong I could hardly breathe. I found the boys sitting on the couch playing video games - completely oblivious to the fact that the house was about to burn down. I found the source of the smoke in the microwave and took the plate outside. I turned the fan on and opened all the windows and doors and the smoke eventually cleared. The plastic plate had melted through. The microwave still smells like burnt popcorn.

The most troubling parts of this story are:
  1. How is it possible the boys didn't even notice?!
  2. Why didn't the smoke detector go off?
This makes me slightly nervous about what might happen if there was a real fire. (But not enough to get rid of my microwave.)

3 comments:

Rachel F. said...

Wow!! That's crazy! By the time it was done had Brenden decided he no longer wanted it? What exactly did he think when he saw it? So funny

Rachel F. said...

P.S. I read that post on cjane a while ago about the microwave. since when is it the cool thing to not have a microwave?? Such a hassle!

sarah said...

Once Brenden realized the severity of what could have happened, he got really scared and upset. He did still want some crumb cake, though, so we tried warming up another piece but now everything that comes out of the microwave smells like smoke.