As Edmund child-proofs the apartment...

I would like to set the record straight after yesterday's post. At the risk of being called a hypocrite, I would like to make it clear that the life of domestic divinity I preach is only what I wish I practiced. I do own a recipe box and an apron, I love to cook, blah blah, but no one has ever mistaken me for being "put together".

I always knew I would royally screw something up, in fact it's a principle I work by daily, and I would also possibly burn my own house down in the process. I didn't burn the house down, but I guarantee I might have if Edmund hadn't been there to save the day. I was cooking yesterday. So while it may sound like I was doing what a good housewife should, rest assured that something was amiss. I thrive on nonsense and disorder: nothing in my house matches (except my forthcoming dishes!), it stays only relatively clean, I can't keep track of the date, and my husband won't let me have a dog. So let me assure you that if you are picturing a woman in sweats with wet hair walking on Rice Krispies leftover from breakfast and searching her cabinets for a clean dish to use while she burns the bread toasting in the oven, you have a pretty accurate grasp of the situation.

Oh, yeah. So the thing that happened.



I was boiling spaghetti noodles on one of the back burners and cutting vegetables on the cutting board just on the left side of the stove, when a blinding--and I am not exaggerating here, blinding--flash and loud POP like a gunshot exploded in my face. Edmund was several feet away on the couch, and he jumped up like a friggin cricket on crack. I was trying to figure out what had just happened, but I was seeing spots and temporarily deaf, and I was hunched on the floor with my arms above my head as if gunfire had somehow erupted in my kitchen without my knowledge, so I couldn't get a handle on things for what seemed like an eternity. Edmund rushed into the kitchen just as I had discovered the source of the fracas: the toaster's electric cord had been on the burner next to the pan without my noticing it, and the plastic coating had gradually melted away, leaving the PLUGGED IN WIRES exposed to extreme heat. And they exploded with a giant surge of electricity.

I did not know they could do that.

It truly is a miracle that I wasn't hurt, as close as I was, and that Edmund had the presence of mind to reach forward and flip the switch on the outlet so we could safely move the cord. Whew.

Do y'all realize what could have happened? My toaster is toasted, but what if that had been the cord of the kettle and we had to boil water for tea IN A PAN for the next couple of days?

I
could
be
divorced.