Do you ever wonder how multi-published authors can crank out over a dozen books a year?
Concentration. Even as storytellers they lose themselves in their plots and away they go. Sounds simple, right? Well it is in a sense. You sit, you write, you repeat. And there you have the “magic formula” for every single fantastic book you’ve ever read.
But they never tell you about the hazards.
Last week I was sitting at my laptop happily typing away. My chair was right near the sliding glass door of my balcony and it was noisy enough, and windy enough for me not to notice little things.
Until I was interrrupted by a startling sound.
It was, as you might imagine, an effective distraction. And for once I didn’t mourn the loss of focus. I was too busy staring as smoke curled out of the top vents of the microwave. (Did you know that’s what those vents were for? I had no idea!)
I ended up with something that looked a little bit like this:
I’m going to have to apologize here and admit that it’s not actually my picture. I found it HERE. I was too distracted to think to grab my camera. LOL.
But here is what I’ve learned:
1) You know you eat a lot of microwaveable meals when you instinctively just hit the button for 6 minutes.
2) Microwave popcorn does not take six minutes to pop.
3) If you happen to set off your fire alarm it is best to air out the entire house as quickly as possible so the whole place doesn’t smell. But…
4) Chances are it’s going to smell REALLY bad for awhile anyway.
5) The only way to make the smell of charcoaled microwave popcorn go away is to wipe every surface (especially the inside of the microwave) with bleach wipes, followed by spraying fantastic, followed by spraying windex.
Eventually you’ll realize none of those really work and you’ll just start laying out large platters of baking soda EVERYWHERE including inside the microwave.
And after a week, the smell of burnt popcorn will go away, along with the after-smell of stale cigarettes.
See, it’s Monday morning and you’ve already learned something!
Dana
The Popcorn Incinerator
(P.S. See mom, this is why I don’t cook!)
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I’m death on cooking vegetables in pans, whether I’m at the end of the house at the computer or near the kitchen. It happens almost every time.
The worst time filled the house with smoke so bad I called the fire department to find out how to get rid of it.
After washing the walls down with ammonia solution, I then put out bowls of ammonia here and there.
Pretty soon the ammonia fumes were more suffocating than the smoke.
Sigh.
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The hotel thing wasn’t really an option because I had to open all the windows to air the place out. I couldn’t evacuate with open windows, unfortunately!
Oh no! I cannot imagine the hideous, rancid, retched smell at your house. I can barely tolerate burnt popcorn. EEWW! Charcoal briquette popcorn must be unbearable. Did you get a hotel?
LOL Lanie. I thinking the creepy smoking microwave was plenty scary.
You haven’t caught a microwave on fire, so you’re doing okay yet.
Not that I’ve done such a thing–just using it as, ah, an example. No, really. I am.