My Potato Burst into Flames

I'm having a string of bad luck. My printer/scanner/copier died last weekend, and I have over eighty pages I need to print by this coming Sunday. Last Saturday, I fell up the stairs of the church at my cousin's wedding straight into the preacher, who thankfully caught me. My homeowners insurance nearly doubled this year, and I had to scramble to find another company before my mortgage payment increased by $155.00 a month. All of that is discouraging, but Tuesday took the cake.

I bring my lunch to work every day, which saves me a ton of money. Oftentimes, my noon meal requires cooking before I can eat it. Such was the case on Tuesday when things went horribly awry. During the span of roughly ten minutes, I solidified my office nickname, Hurricane. I nearly burned the building down.

I put my hotdog on the stove to boil. I then poked several holes in a potato and placed it in our new, super powerful microwave. I set the timer for ten minutes. That's the minimum amount of time my microwave at home takes to cook a potato. It's usually closer to fifteen minutes before my machine gets a spud cooked.

I went back to my desk to finish the report I was doing while my lunch cooked. Our building is small. In reality, my desk is probably less than fifty feet from the microwave, but it's separated by two walls. I didn't feel I was really leaving anything unattended because I was so close. With only a thirty minute lunch break, I didn't want to spend any of my eating time cooking.

I was making good progress on my report when I heard the smoke alarm in the hallway go off. I jumped out of my chair and headed that way just before I heard a coworker yell, "Margarite, you're on fire!"

I ran to our little kitchen nook in the hallway where I found my potato had burst into flames with three minutes left on the timer. These flames were at least six inches tall and looked hungry. In the forty years I've been cooking, I've never seen anything do that.

I launched myself at the microwave, turned it off, punched my hand into a hot pad, and jerked the flaming potato from the appliance. As I was rushing it outside, three of my coworkers returned from their various meetings in time to see the flames die. Of course, the universe provided me with an audience for my mishap. Embers were still gently cascading from my poor spud when I dropped it in some mud in the parking lot.

Everyone in the building gathered around my smoldering potato. They laughed and pointed, especially those who couldn't even boil water to save their lives. A couple of them took pictures. The fact that I'm known as the best cook in the building only added fuel to their laughter.

I squared my shoulders and dealt with the situation by myself as everyone poked fun at me. I set up a fan in the hallway, facing the propped open side door to blow the smoke out of the building. Then I scrubbed the soot coating the inside of our microwave. It didn't all come off, but the machine doesn't smell like smoke, so I'm calling it a success. I placed a box of baking soda inside, just to be safe.

Of course, my coworkers have been teasing me about my potato ever since that day. Every day I sit down to eat my lunch, someone makes a baked potato comment.

That's okay. I can take it. I'm just thankful that my potato was the only casualty. I will tell you one thing, though. I brought a bologna sandwich and salad for the lunch the next day, even though our new microwave still works just fine. It will be a long time before I bring a potato to work again.