Sallie Started the Fire

Many people say my lovely wife is quite the fireball. Strong personality, fiery red hair, and opinions that can't be swayed.

A lot of people don't know how much of a fireball my wife truly is, in that, she loves to almost burn out house down... so so many times

College didn't offer too many opportunities for me to see her penchant for a life dedicated to the flame. We honestly didn't cook much, and when we did it was usually pasta. It's kinda hard to start a fire when you're applying heat by boiling water. (But just you wait)

They don't prepare you for an arson leaning spouse in all the pre-marriage workbooks. It never came up as a topic I should've covered. "Hey Sal, page 13 here says I should ask you how you are with kitchens and fires?" "Oh, yeah that, it's not a good situation. Make sure there's a fire extinguisher in any kitchen we ever share."

I didn't even get this preview when we lived in Myrtle Beach because she worked the night shift. I was always the cook.

The first time this happened was in our apartment on Juniata. She came downstairs to help me switch out the laundry, which was nice of her. We're having a relatively casual conversation, hang drying some items, talking about what we wanted to do with this wide open weekend.

I start the slog back up the stairs and see a sort of strobe affect happening against the wall. As I turned the corner, I see a six foot tall flame kissing the ceiling from our cheap Teflon WalMart pan.

See, what Sal had failed to tell me while she was helping me switch the laundry is that she started cooking her bacon with the assumption that she was have one delicious crispy side done by the time she got back upstairs. Well, she had two crispy sides, completely flame broiled.

I grabbed the pan, walked it outside, and just held the flaming metal and rubber until the fire ran it's course and I had to overly well done pieces of bacon laying in the middle.

There was another breakfast incident in our new house. This one wasn't as dramatic as the rest on the list and I don't even remember what the meal was. What I do remember is the charred remains in the pan when all was said and done.

If I let you down with that last one, let me tell you about the great soup fire. Yes, soup fire. Like a river catching fire in Cleveland, Sal caught soup broth on fire. (before the fire started, there was no liquid left.)

So let's rewind a bit, there had been a delicious soup broth, at a rolling boil, going for a solid 6 hours. An entire chicken carcass and a few fistfuls of vegetables and spices had filled the house with a delicious aroma.

We wanted to go to the gym though. Sal said, "we're good, there's a ton of liquid left in the pot."

Well, maybe there was at some point.

When we got home from the gym, after being gone for one house, we open the door and black smoke came billowing out. Every smoke alarm in the house was going off. The cats were standing at the door screaming at the top of their lungs.

Soup was off the menu that night unless we wanted charred bone soup. We had to pitch my pasta pot with the built in strainer lid, wash the curtains like 4 times, and get Steak N' Shake.

Two weeks ago, Sal and I met up for lunch time in the kitchen. She sheepishly said, "I accidentally caught our kitchen towel on fire."

To be fair, it was barely smoldering according to Sal, but ask yourself... how many towels have you caught on fire?

OK, so maybe my hubris got the best of me. This week, it was I that tried to burn the house down. I made myself a delicious grilled cheese with ham on the cast iron flat top. I only had 10 minutes between calls and I ran downstairs to make my next one... and I... Dan... left the burner on.

So Sal is still +3, but who's keeping score?