AWESOME--in a very scary way

I’ll admit it.  I’m easily distracted.  The part of my brain that’s supposed to focus and keep lists was probably trashed when I fell on my head while trying to walk along the roof of the machine shop when I was seven.  Or the time I fell in the unfinished basement when I was twelve, or when I fell off the horse…anyway I’ll blame it on one of those.

I like to think I’m creative, not a dufus, but a lot of others seem to have different opinions.  I’ll confess I’ve gotten so caught up in studying light and shades of color in clouds that I’ve nearly driven into a ditch.  I can become so fascinated by a pattern on a person’s shirt that I will zone out entirely on what they’re saying.

On Christmas day our family was preparing for a big dinner.  We were waiting for a few guests who would arrive any minute.  New gifts pulled everyone into the living room while I finished up and then went to my computer to, you know, check on things.  I could smell a smoldering smell and blamed it on spillage from the turkey in the oven.  Then it slowly dawned on me that I’d already taken the turkey out of the oven. 

I said one of those words I shouldn’t say and ran to the kitchen.  Black smoke was rolling across the ceiling.  At that moment the fire alarm went off and everyone came to see me pull a small pan of chopped walnuts out from under the broiler.  I’d set them there to “toast” before using them as topping on a dessert.  Now they were ablaze and on their way to becoming charcoal.

I grabbed hot pads and carried the pan to the door like a waiter bringing a flaming dessert to diners at a fine restaurant.  The outside breezes snuffed out the fire.  I set the pan and its charred contents beside the barbecue grill and returned to the scene of the inferno.

Everyone opened windows and turned on fans to chase out the smoke just as the final visitors arrived. No one was harmed in the making of this disaster.  The hot pads are toast—literally.  The pan is probably beyond salvage.  Now the smoky smell has somewhat cleared out of the kitchen I can set the oven to self-clean--and stink it up again.