Somebody has to find humor in the incident; Lord knows I am trying to. If anything, it was a learning experience. I expect the security guard is still collecting himself off of the floor of his truck after hearing my confession. I had to tell someone; I didn’t want to just drive away, leaving the smell of disaster to invoke panic in those who couldn’t keep away from the building on a company holiday.
Well, actually we DID drive away. But then I came back to the parking lot. I then confessed to the guard, only I didn’t tell him the whole story. I just asked him if he was there because of the smell coming from the kitchen. I told him that we burned something in the kitchen. Simple. Right? He seemed to enjoy hearing the story.
I hated being in the situation. It is easy to focus on the I should have’s after the fact. I am still kicking myself for thinking that YaYa knew better. Of course he didn’t.
Here’s what happened: My work has Cup-O-Noodle Soup packages for free and the kids love to have some whenever we stop in for me to check email on my day off, or whatever the reason. YaYa usually goes off with BoBo to collect up the goods so that by the time they have their soup I am ready to go. The system has worked out pretty well…until now.
The missing piece was BoBo. He wasn’t with us today. I had told YaYa to wait for me but, when he headed to the kitchen ahead of me, I didn’t stop him. I went to my desk, thinking I would dock my computer, log in, and let my settings load while I retrieved YaYa.
Well, I soon got sidetracked. In reading and responding to the emails regarding BoBo’s curriculum for his 2nd semester (the reason why I needed to go to work), I forgot about YaYa until I heard him calling for me. I quickly got up. Immediately, I saw in his face that something bad had happened. Something was wrong. I pictured noodles and soup all over the floor, but that wasn’t it.
I arrived in the kitchen to find a thick cloud of smoke. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I wondered how on earth hot water from a tap could have ended up causing smoke. Then I saw the reason for the smoke, and I realized that YaYa didn’t have a clue on how to prepare Cup-O-Noodle Soup.