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the best way to meet all your neighbors at once
Let me begin this by saying EVERYTHING IS FINE but I definitely set my kitchen on fire yesterday. I was going to make sweet potato fries so I turned the oil on to heat up and went to the counter to cut up the sweet potatoes. A minute later, I turned around and POOF the pot was on fire. A really big fire!
I picked up Quint, threw him on the porch, chased the dogs outside and called 911. They got there in less than 4 minutes and had the fire out quickly. They brought in three regular fire trucks, a hook and ladder truck, two ambulances, and three police cars (it was seriously overkill but whatever, they responded quickly and not much was damaged). They blocked off my entire street and were definitely running at my house with axes.
My entire neighborhood came outside to see what was going on so I got to meet them all at once. Four neighbors came over at different times last night to make sure we were OK and didn't need anything.
God it was embarrashing. I'm not cooking EVER AGAIN. I am not cut out for this domestic crap.
OH, and yesterday was my husband's birthday. We got to spend the night wiping the smoke off of everything. Luckily, the only thing I damaged was a tiny corner of a cabinet and a microwave that sits above the stove.
It was the greatest thing that Quint had ever seen. He is obsessed with fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. He keeps asking me when they are coming back. My answer is HOPEFULLY NEVER.
Re: the best way to meet all your neighbors at once
LOL... glad you are all okay. Thing of it this way, at least all the neighbor came to check on you! It would be really bad if they didn't notice or care!
Sounds like an exciting evening and so glad you had little damage.
Holy cow, glad you're all safe. I did the same thing once when I was 12. I was starving when I came home from school and was going to make a fried egg. I put the oil on high heat and then ate cereal or something really quickly. By the time I'd turned around the flames were leaping up.
I remembered something from that show with Urkel... I forget the name, anyway, I knew not to pour water on it because it was a grease fire. So somehow I smothered it. Our cabinets and the kitchen walls above the stove and that whole area had black soot on them for years until we repainted the kitchen and changed the cabinets nearest the stove.
I'm still scared of frying things.
You realize Quint is going to be a firefighter now, right?
Holy crap that is scary! I'm so glad that everything turned out ok and that you seem to have nice caring neighbours!
Holy Crap.
I laughed at the end though I admit. Did he ask in English or Dutch?
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My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DScary. Now go buy a fire blanket and fire extinguisher. Now. Seriously. Now.
We have fire extinguishers and smoke detectors in every room of the house (except bathrooms). We didn't have GREASE fire extinguishers though. I'm just going to avoid cooking at all for a while
Also, I should have been too busy to notice this but firefighters are HOT.
Hahahahaha. Ohhh TotZiens what a way to say, "HEY WE'RE THE NEW NEIGHBORS! Bring your children over to play! It's totally safe here!" Only kidding but I really do think it's funny.
It could actually have been a great talking point because you could've said something like, "My goodness the stoves are SO different in Europe where we just moved from!"
Cute that Quint thought it was amazing.
This is a good point!
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Okay, I'll admit. I was laughing the whole time. Even when you tossed Quint out on the porch. And then chased the dogs out of the house before calling 911. I was positively howling.
And the ambulances coming and firefighters with axes. Jesus Christ that is funny. This whole thing is a youtube moment in the making. Fantastic.
What the hell did you say to them at 911 to make them react like that?
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
Alas, this is not true in England.
I'm pretty sure this was the only call they had gotten all week. I don't live in po-dunk, va but I'm in a pretty sleepy 'burb. They probably get a ton of car accidents but not a lot of actual fires
We had an old neon lightbulb explode in our basement and it smelled horribly of hot oil. So I went down, saw something puddled on the floor and smelled burning oil and thought wtf? My dad said "it's fine, mop it up" my mom said "why not call the fire department to see what they say" so I call the non-emergency line and they are like "does it smell hot? we'll be right there!". Out they come with two big huge trucks and they're all tramping into our house and the neighbors are coming out - we live in a very suburban area so houses right on top of each other and we're on the corner of the two bigger roads in our neighborhood.
So it was just this oil that's in the lights I guess and they said it was pretty common and had to cut it down from the ceiling and haul the whole thing away and ventilate my basement for a while and put down some stuff to soak up all the oil. Meanwhile, the little boys in the neighborhood are beside themselves with glee and my own kid is too shy to even say hello to the 15 firemen who responded. I feel your pain.
I'm glad you guys are ok!
My Mom did something really similar when I was little. She said I was so, so excited about meeting all the firefighters and I talked about it for weeks. Don't think of it as an accident, think of it as a really fun activity you and your son did together (hopefully for the last time) :P
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Way to make an impression on the neighbours! And how nice of them to pop round to check on you!