Tuesday, April 15, 2014

M is for Microwave Popcorn

Have you ever had popcorn burn in the microwave? Leave the little folded package in too long and you have a stinky mess.

Well, this is the story of the day I came home from to find a bag of burnt microwave popcorn on bench outside the front door. 

To set the scene, I had left my 3 children home while I was out—the youngest at the time was 11 years old and his sisters were 2 and 4 years older than him. They were all doing their own  thing that afternoon and  I was gone not longer than 2-3 hours.   The rule of the house is that no one cooks when mom is away. 

After seeing the burnt popcorn bag outside, I was a bit angry because the kids knew not to use the stove when I was not there. I did what any mom would do- I went to interrogate the guilty parties.  My son was the alleged culprit—darn kid said he was hungry!  He decided that using the microwave—especially for 3 minutes or less --- did not constitute cooking.  “Besides,” he said, “technically it was not using the stove.”  His story was that somehow the popcorn burned and it had stunk up the place so he put the bag outside.   I reprimanded him to be safe and responsible and figured no harm done. Case closed. 

Mothers of teens and pre-teens: Always ask the unasked questions!  Always assume there might be more!  My advice is to add on to every interrogation, “….and what else?”  

You see, as Paul Harvey used to say, "Here’s the  rest of the  story…”

A few days later as the family was talking, one of my girls revealed a little bit more. As we were talking, she says…”you know, it was right after the firemen were here.”

Say what? 

Firemen?

Here?   When? 

Oh yeah....they were here.  As the popcorn began to burn in the microwave that day it began to smoke.  The bag actually caught on fire (quickly put out).  It set off our monitored smoke/theft alarms and the sirens began to blare through the neighborhood.  The fire department was automatically called and the firetrucks came sirens on and all to the house. 

For the fire. 

Of course by the time they got there all they found was a scared young boy, his teenage sisters, and a burnt bag of microwave popcorn. 

Had my girls not slipped and let it come out in natural conversation, I might have never known the fire department had been to the house that day.


And that is the rest of my microwave popcorn story.

Have firemen been called to your house over popcorn?  

4 comments:

betty said...

Oh wow; that was perhaps a lesson they learned not to cool when you were gone? Glad it wasn't more damage! No, I haven't had the firemen called for popcorn, but years ago, my mom had the firemen called at our house at the time. She had put on the stove a pot of sausage to cook while we were at church (a mere 5 blocks away). She must have done this before and gotten away with it, thinking the church service would be over in time for the sausage to be cooked for us for lunch. Well it was Palm Sunday and the "habit" at the Catholic Church was to read the whole Palm Sunday to Good Friday story from the gospels so it was a longer service. When we got home, smoke was coming out of the kitchen and through the whole house. She called the firemen, who came, threw the pot onto the snow that was on the ground (this was in Pennsylvania) and we had smoke damage but not a fire. I don't think she ever did that again.

betty

Susan Scott said...

O my goodness! At least you know! Thankfully it was all ok in the end!!!

MS said...

Betty, I have some aunts who have been known to stick a roast in the oven then go to church-- but I don't think they ever leave anything on top of the stove. I'm glad everything turned out all right at your place and bonus is now there is a family everyone can tell!
Thanks for stopping by!
Mary

MS said...

Susan-
I am glad that I know--but always wondered what did I NOT know as my kids grew up!
Now I can laugh about it because everyone is grown and made it without anything too serious happening. At that time it wasn't as funny! :)
Mary