by Stacy O'Brien

Created on: June 04, 2008

My least favorite question is "What were you cooking when you caught on fire?". There are a couple of reasons I don't look forward to that question. Mainly because it was nothing exciting, it was pasta. I was boiling pasta when I caught myself on fire in my kitchen.

The second reason I hate that question is that inevitably someone ELSE hears that question asked and says, "What? You caught on fire? HOW?", which is my second least favorite question because then I have to explain that I was wearing my husband's huge flannel shirt and foolishly standing too close to the burner.

How does one catch on fire in their kitchen, even in a huge flannel near the burner? Well, one is leaning against the counter talking to one's husband on the phone, not realizing one's huge shirt has poofed out in back and unfortunately touched against the burner.

"How did you get the fire out?", is usually next in the question line-up, and that makes sense. What does not make sense is what I actually did. I started off well, though, with an automatic stop-drop-and roll technique. I rolled, but to no avail. Still flaming, I ran for the sliding glass door, hoping to stop-drop-and roll on the lawn. It was locked, and I panicked. I sat in the closest kitchen chair hoping to smother the flames. The chair was slatted. I burned the chair. I ran for the sink and yanked out the sprayer hose, and in what seemed like an hour but was actually several seconds, it was all over.

(We have hardwood floors. They apparently do not smother the flames of the stop-drop-and roll as well as, say, the ugly teal carpet right next to it would have!)

Since I was on the phone with my husband when this happened, he heard me screaming bloody murder as I ran frantically around the kitchen. He had no idea what was going on. He heard the screaming, and heard the phone hit the floor and thought I had seen....a spider! So that tells you something about my issues! The fact that he thought seeing a spider could elicit the response that we now know was due to setting myself on fire speaks volumes about my arachnophobia, but that's another story.

I did manage to learn a few valuable lessons from my embarrassing kitchen accident:

1. It is much safer to cook in spandex, and
2. I really need to do something about my fear of spiders.

But most importantly:
3. If I ever catch on fire in or near the kitchen again, I will dive for the ugly teal carpet.

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