5 Alarm Mire

Last Saturday I decided to make popcorn for guests. Put some oil in a pot, turned the heat on. Forgot.

Kaboom the guests were unimpressed. In fact one of them screamed. Somehow in the heat of the moment I forgot all about boy scouts and splashed some water at the hazard. It threatened to consume our uninsured dwelling so I stopped splashing. In hindsight a lid would have sufficed.

However, it was much more entertaining to grapple the pot handle and run with the ball of flame down the hall and out onto the street, where everyone had evacuated to. I wanted to save the pot and clean out the goo but my darling convinced me that $10 for a new one would be a healthier choice.

It’s a good thing there was lots of wine around. Sunday morning involved a couple hours of sweaty, half-naked soot scrubbing. Low and behold it all looks great. Except for the ceiling which turned from an actual explosion mark to a nice subtle smudgy grey-white.

It’s only $20/month for renter’s insurance! Not bad for limiting liability for your own recklessness, but I wonder if they would give me a discount since the probability of a claim just plummeted. Or maybe they would deny the application.