It was an odd question from a coworker for a couple of reasons. First, it's the middle of winter; outside highs have been dipping into single digits and sub-zero temperatures this week. Second, my office is typically a few degrees warmer than Hoth. 'Tis not the season for circulating fans.
My colleague recognized the confusion on my face so she provided an explanation. Someone tried to cook a microwavable pizza in the break room and tried too hard. They nuked the pizza long enough that it caught fire and filled the room with a smokey haze. Flames had been extinguished yet my coworker was looking for a way to dissipate the stench hanging in the air.
The door to the break room is ten paces from the door to my office and I was completely unaware of the excitement happening so nearby. Unfortunately, I do not posses a fan so an alternate method of air circulation would be needed. Days later, our break room still smells like burnt cheese.
By the end of the day, after I left the office and made my way home, I almost composed the following sentiment to post on Twitter: "It takes a special kind of stupid to microwave a pizza so long it actually catches fire." But I stopped myself. Why? Well, haven't we all done something similar? I know I have.
During the winter of '99, my two roommates both traveled home for Christmas, leaving me alone for the holidays. I had moved out of my parent's house earlier that year and it would be an eight hour drive if I wanted to visit them. Other circumstances prevented me from heading back to the Seattle area. The main reason was my retail job that expected all staff to be working the day before and after Christmas.
I worked the late shift at Old Navy and was a team-lead throwing freight after the store closed. We worked until midnight. My crew and I frequently went to Sheri's after work where we would hang out for a couple hours over coffee and conversation. It was usually between 2am and 3am when I drove back to my apartment.
If I was still hungry in those pre-dawn hours, my typical dinner was a plate of nachos. A handful of chips, a handful of cheese, stick it in the microwave for seventy seven seconds. Simple, quick, cheap - three things a twenty year old bachelor craved. While my roommates were out of town, I would turn on a movie and lounge in the recliner while I ate, then I'd often fall asleep in the living room without a worry of anyone waking me up while they got ready for school or work the next morning.
After an unusually late night, followed by another late night of holiday shoppers and abnormally large product shipments, I was exhausted. I still ordered my plate of fries at Shari's and hung out with my crew. After finishing there, I had another conversation with one coworker in the parking lot before driving home. It was almost 4am when I walked in the door. Still, I kept my dinner routine: plate, chips, cheese, 77 seconds, recliner, movie.
Except, I made a mistake. When I placed my nachos in the microwave, I pushed the seven button one too many times. Instead of my normal duration, I tried cooking my food for seven minutes and seventy seven seconds. I sat down expecting to hear the ding notifying me my meal was ready, but it didn't chime. Because I was so drowsy, I dozed off in the recliner before eating. I woke up a few minutes later to the smell of smoke.
image courtesy of Dorset Fire Protection
The plate was too hot to touch, I needed oven mitts to extract it from the microwave. The chips were all charred black and the cheese melted to the point it welded to the Pyrex. I tried to pull the nachos off the plate to dispose of it in the trash. Nothing budged. I attempted chiseling it off with a steak knife without success. I had to throw it all away, plate with the torched food.
The bottom floor of our apartment was filled with acrid smoke and was beginning to waft up the stairs to the bedrooms. Despite being the middle of winter, I opened the sliding glass door to the back patio and tried waving a towel in that direction to clear the air. By sunrise, the smoke was gone but the stench remained.
One of my roommates was due to return five days later. My goal was to have the apartment back to a normal odor by then. Every night when I got home from work, I opened all the windows and the sliding door to create a breeze. With snowy weather and daytime temps below freezing that whole week, I slept under every blanket I owned. I closed the windows and doors the next day when I left for work, then repeated the process when I returned.
I left the front windows open when I drove to pick Shane up from the airport, my last ditch effort to eradicate the vague burning scent. On the drive home, I warned him that the apartment smelled funny. When he asked why, I explained how I had burned some nachos. He laughed and said, "How bad can it be?" My parking spot was directly in front of the open windows. When Shane stepped out of my car, he took a deep breath and asked, "What's that smell?" I replied, "Remember how I told you I burned some nachos?" Yes, you could smell it from the parking lot.
Lesson learned, and I've never burned anything in a microwave since then. This week, my nearly posted attempt at humor reminded me of past failures. I deleted my tweet before I even tweeted it. If it takes a special kind of stupid to set a microwavable pizza on fire, then I am that special kind of stupid. There's no need to insult an unknown coworker for sins I've so easily committed.
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