Fire!

Ok, you know how no one wants to lead a boring life and you want a little excitement every now and then?  Yeah, well, I think I'm over that.  Bring on boring for a little while!!  After my IVF, kidney stones, Brody's herniated disk and Austin's mysterious rash (that the Drs thought was Scarlet Fever at first!  Who gets that?!) I think we're ready for some NORMAL!  Yesterday at work some coworkers and I were talking about various snacks and fried pickles were brought up.  So, of course I just HAD to have them!  It's all I talked about the rest of the afternoon actually.  So, I went to the store and bought pickles and went home to get my snack on.  I even texted Austin to let him know we'd be having fried pickles with our dinner because I was so excited about it.  Let's just say we didn't end up eating fried pickles last night....

I decided to catch our house on fire instead.  Oops! 

Here's what happened, I heated a cast iron skillet with some vegetable oil and let it get good and hot for the beloved pickles.  I did the "heat test" thing where you flick a few drops of water onto the oil to make sure it sizzled and was hot enough (the recipe told me to do it!).  Well, it really sizzled and scared me (I'm not used to frying stuff) so I decided that I was going to wait until Austin got home so he could put the pickles in the oil.  I turned the burner off and apparently made the biggest mistake of all...I put the cast iron lid onto the pan thinking it would just stay warm until Austin got home a few minutes later.  WRONG!!!  About 10 minutes later I heard a noise and I turned around just in time to see FLAMES bursting out from under the lid!  Like, foot tall flames!  All the way up to my cabinets and microwave!  I PANICKED!!!  But I immediately got to action (all the while screaming like a psycho path was chasing me.  Seriously, it was probably pretty comical if it hadn't been so scary and involving fire).  Earlier I had gotten out one of Austin's big heat gloves that he uses when he smokes meat thinking that would be smart to wear when putting the pickles in the oil, so I put it on and grabbed the HEAVY pan to run it outside.  Yeah, didn't happen.  The flames were OUT OF CONTROL and I was afraid I was going to burn my arms and face so I literally threw the whole thing in the sink and (while still screaming) called 911.  Then I spotted the fire extinguisher and hung up on them (oops) and threw the phone across the kitchen and went to town with that fire extinguisher.  I got the fire out and then it CAME BACK!!!  So I screamed some more and drained the rest of that extinguisher until there was nothing left in it and all was good.  Oh, and just let me mention that my back door was open this entire time and I've decided we have the WORST neighbors EVER because not ONE person came to check on me!  And I know they had to have heard!  I mean, when I say I was screaming I'm not kidding or exaggerating.  I.  WAS.  LOUD!  Both of our neighbors on each side had kids playing in the back yard.  Whatever.  Grrrr.

So, fire was out.  Crisis was over.  I was still screaming.  But a little more calmly now.  And every single fire detector in our house was going off.  I had no idea we had that many detectors by the way.  There are a LOT.  And they are LOUD. 

This was the view on my way out of the house that I sent Austin from my phone (who by the way was still at work!  He said he was coming home but he still hadn't left yet).  I kept running from the backyard into the house opening windows a room at a time trying to get some of that smoke out.  And when I would open a window and go back outside you could just see the smoke pouring out of the window.  Nice. 

The aftermath.  Notice the fire extinguisher clip, super heat resistant glove, grease and fire extinguisher residue everywhere.

The culprit.  This pot and I will never be friends.

The pickles that were never fried.  I still want some by the way.  I'll have to go to a restaurant next time.

The Valentine's Day flowers that were so pretty just the day before.  Now covered in soot.

The thick layer of soot/extinguisher residue on the floor

More residue.  And the hand soap that was melted shut.

Grease splatter and residue

The only things that actually ended up ruined after this scary fiasco.  I cleaned off the left stool and you can see how much soot/residue was on the other one still.

Grease splatter that isn't going anywhere.  :(  Luckily we know how to recover chairs so it's not too big of a deal to replace.  It still makes me sad though.

Oh, by the way, I kept wondering why the fire department or police never showed up after I called 911 and hung up.  Well, they did....45 minutes later!!!  Are you kidding me?!?!  They said they had a 911 call and tried to call back but no one answered.  You'd think they would make a little more effort than that to check on the situation!  So, now my neighbors and the police/fire department are on my list...and not the good list you'd want to be on.

So, that was my eventful Wednesday night that took Austin and I over 2 hours to clean up.  Thank GOD I wasn't hurt and I didn't burn our house down!  Everyone, make sure you have a fire extinguisher somewhere in your kitchen!!!  Otherwise, it probably would have taken the fire dept about 5 minutes to get there (had I not hung up on them...) and there would have been MUCH more damage to our house!

Here's to an uneventful Thursday!!  :)