Mothers Day Scarf Massacre of 2004

The following story takes place Thursday night from 7:00 pm to 10:45 pm.

I have been cleared of all charges.

Thursday night I was working on a few papers I have to turn in as the semester draws to a close. As I’m typing away at the laptop, Heidi informs me that she’s going to the store or something, and wants to know if I need anything I guess. I can’t tell completely since my attention span takes a while to engage once I’m in “the zone” with my homework.

I do catch something though. Something something the scarf something. I think she wants me to check on something periodically.

Heidi has recently begun dyeing silk scarves. It’s something she’s picked up at work, and she teaches it to her old people. She’s darn good at it too. The woman looks like a movie star whenever she wears a scarf- very golden age Hollywood. Drives me nuts.

So she’s made a scarf and she’s going to give it to her mother for mother’s day. Sweet. Last thing she needs to do is set the dye by steaming it, so she’s set it up in a pot in the kitchen and she just needs me to check on it once an hour or so.

OK.

A few hours later I’m typing and my laptop begins to smell. Sweet. I must be working so hard that the laptop is about to have a meltdown. I save my work and keep typing. If that’s true I want it to go full nuclear under the weight of my Information Systems case study masterpiece. Come on baby.

Then it hits me. Wait. Smokey smell… smoke… burning. What does that make me think of? Heat. There’s something hot. If it’s not the laptop, then what else could it be? Hot, heat, burn… smoke… OH HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP.

I spin out of my seat and dart down the hall. The smell increases exponentially until I reach the epicenter- the kitchen. Here the smell of a thousand tire fires has camped out on the stove. This can’t be good. It’s bound to have some sort of effect on the steaming process.

I lift the lid. Poof. Black billows of smoke burp forth and I dodge them as they head for the ceiling. Peaking through the puffs I see the scarf.

No I see a thing. You know those shows about the aftermath of Pompeii? The ones where they show the charred remains of those who decided to flee too late? Yeah. One got in my pot.

I call Heidi and beg forgiveness, and after she stops crying she is more than willing. Turns out the stove is the culprit. Last time, she says, it never got that hot. It’s been inconsistent lately, going from warm to magma without warning and the evidence pointed to another such episode.

So Heidi’s Mom, I’m sorry. She had this really beautiful thing to send you and now it’s a crumbly blackened nasty thing. Not my fault tho. Not my fault.

Happy Mother’s day.

By Ed Adkins on May 9th, 2004 at 6:46 pm

Topics: Mem-wires