FIRE

I started a fire today....in my stove!  I mean a real fire, flames, smoke, flames, did I mention flames????  I sincerely thought I was going to burn my house down!!  I have already had one house fire in my life (I was not home at the time, so it wasn't my fault.)  I have had a huge fear of fire my whole life, only magnified but the burning home experience, so discovering full blown flames in my stove was very petrifying for me!  I had baked "sticky buns" with my students in Foods class this afternoon and they turned out to be delicious!  When I got home, I decided to bake some for Marty as he had to work late and always appreciates yummy surprises.  I filled my angelfood cake pan with butter, syrup, raisins and sugar and put the dough on top, spilled more yummy stuff ontop and stuck the pan in the oven.  I am queen of multi tasking, so naturally I was on the phone while creating this concoction.  As I cleaned the dishes, I smelled something burning.  I opened the stove and...FIRE!!!!!!!!  The syrupy, sugary goodness had dripped out of the bottom of the pan, pooled on the bottom of the stove and caught fire!  I screamed!  My girlfriend on the other end of the phone yelled "pour salt on it!!" I looked at my salt shaker and seriously doubted that that shaker would put out the fire.  "Don't you have a box of salt?"  My girlfriend, remaining calm on the other end of the phone asked.  NO!!!  I panicked, grabbed a cup full of water, threw it on the flames and turned the oven off.  I pulled out my sticky buns, put the gooey mess on a plate and popped them in the microwave, hoping they would finish baking.  I then, brilliantly decided to immediately put the self cleaning mode on.  FYI, that was a stupid move!!!  The self cleaning mode basically turns the stove up high as it can go and burns the shit out of everything in there.  Yep, you guessed it, didn't take long until I had a fire in my self cleaning oven!  In my panic, I had not scraped the syrup from the bottom of the oven and now it was on fire, inside my oven with the door LOCKED!!!!! Apparently the self cleaner locks the oven door!!!  By this time my heart is pounding, the house is full of smoke and I don't know what to do.  I called my girlfriend back and had her ask her mom if the oven should have flames during cleaning.  I knew the answer was no, but clearly I was not thinking rationally at the time!!  I turned off the self cleaner, and hoped for the best!  Luckily the fire went out and i was left with a smokey, smelly condo!  Scout was petrified, so, after opening all of the windows, leaving Marty a voicemail message informing him to pick up something already cooked for dinner, and making sure no flames were going to spontaneously flare back up, I took her for a walk in the fresh, clean city air!!!!