The Smoke Out

Well, I had quite an exciting evening yesterday.  It didn't start out exciting, nor did I ever really intend on it being exciting.  But here's what happened.

First of all, I should preface that the kitchen in our apartment is currently a giant disaster, most all of which is my fault.  I feel that I should also mention I had every intention of doing the dishes tonight as well.  However, that not being done yet, among other things, there was an empty pot on the stove that had one of those black plastic serving spoons in it.  This is very important.

Being hungry, I decided I was going to make some dinner and then tackle the mess that was (is) the kitchen.  So I get out a little pot, put it on the small burner behind said pot with spoon, and turn it on to boil some water for pasta.  You may already see where this is going.

Having done that, I went to the other side of the counter and sat at the table.  I figured I'd make a new playlist for my drive this week while I was waiting for the water to boil.  I should note that I do this all the time, because I hear when the water boils and then I just get up and tend to it.

So I'm sitting there, debating on happy, upbeat songs to go on my new playlist (Deer in the Headlights is my new fave by Owl City.  You should go HERE and watch it.), and all of sudden I sort of look up and think, "Huh, it smells like something is burning."  I figure that it's a crumb of something that had fallen under the heating coil, being something that also tends to happen often.  I get up to check it out.

Actually, before I even get up, I just turned my head toward the kitchen……and see a GIANT plume of smoke.  I shot out of my chair and into the kitchen where I see that the burner I thought I had turned on is still sitting there with a pot full of still cold, salted water.  The burner in front of it though - the one with the empty pot and aforementioned spoon - is emanating an alarming amount of smoke.  I quickly grab it and set it off of the burner, but it's far too hot for me to do anything else with it at the moment, and as I looked around I realized that the apartment was literally FULL of smoke.

I'm running around opening windows and turning on fans.  It should be noted here that neither our smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detectors went off, so that's safe.  (Side Note: I Googled "burning plastic" and it turns out it can emit toxic fumes, one of which is carbon monoxide.  So, you know, nothing like trying to gas myself in my own apartment.  Go me.)  Not being my most intelligent moment, I FINISHED COOKING MY PASTA (What? I was hungry…), and then sat in my camp chair outside the door to my apartment while I waited for the smoke to clear inside.

I did wind up finally meeting out next door neighbor, he's quite nice.  After I finished eating I checked inside and the smoke has mostly dissipated so I wandered back inside to do some more damage control.  Although the smoke was gone the apartment still smelled like a toxic wasteland, and I didn't really feel like staying there.  So I called up some friends of mine and asked if I could stay at their house for the night.  As it turns out, they were camping 30 miles away for the weekend, but told me I could come stay with them in their RV.
After quadruple checking that the stove was off, I packed a bag and left to meet them, leaving all the windows open to hopefully air the place out while I was away.  And so that's where I still am now, enjoying nature and friends and whatnot, and waiting for my apartment to air out.

Yep.  Just another normal day.  *sigh*