Heh, heh! Get it? The MOMENt. Like The Omen. But with an M. And a t.
Is it a bad omen if your chili sets off the smoke detector?
I don't mean that while you're cooking it, the alarm in the kitchen goes off. That could be caused by something on the burner getting charred. Or like when you open up the oven, and all that heat rushes out. Those kind of things happen pretty regularly for Val. She does not take it personally.
However...Monday morning I cooked up a pot of chili. Monday evening around 7:30, I went upstairs to take some of it out of FRIG II and warm it for my supper. Hick was gone to an auction, so I just ladled some out of the pot into a saucepan. Once it was hot (not boiling, mind you, just very warm), I put it in a styrofoam bowl for transport down to my dark basement lair.
There are 13 steps. At step #8, I stop to transfer whatever I'm carrying from my left hand to my right. That's because there is no rail, and I hang onto the bases of the banisters with my right hand until my position puts them over my head. From there, I use my left hand to balance myself with part of the framing around the stairs for two steps, and then grab the metal support pole holding up the main floor for the last three.
Let the record show that there's a smoke detector on that framing around the stairs. In the area above the 11th step.
There I was, holding a tray with a styrofoam bowl of chili, a ramekin holding 2 oz of shredded cheddar, and a mini cup of Caramel Swirl ice cream...when the smoke detector BEEPED. Not a full-fledged GET OUT NOW YOU ARE GOING TO BE INCINERATED steady pattern of alarm. Just a single BEEP.
After my heart settled down from the shock, I assumed that this smoke detector might need a new battery. I waited for more BEEPS after lengthy silences, but none came. Not a single one. So I guess that theory can be discarded.
Seriously. My chili is not even spicy. I can't believe it set off the smoke detector when I walked under it.
It may be that YOU & not the chili, is hot stuff!!
ReplyDeleteWooHoo! I just gained ten pounds from you feeding my ego!
DeleteI was thinkin' the same thing.
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh! Now I'm going to need to join a gym!
DeleteIf it is setting off smoke alarms, it is too hot for me!
ReplyDeleteA cinnamon candy is hotter than my chili. But I've never carried one down the steps.
DeleteThat would creep me out if I was alone in the house! Of course I am never alone. My doxies follow my every movement like they are stalking me.
ReplyDeleteOh, great! Now I'm thinking it had nothing to do with heat or chili, and it was just my basement "entity" making its presence known again!
DeletePerhaps it was you that set off the detector, were you having a hot flush at the time? Or just overly warm from the summer heat and the exertion of carrying several things down stairs with NO RAIL! NO. RAIL. Get Hick to put a rail on there.
ReplyDeleteNot at the time. In fact, there was a chill in the basement, and I turned on my underdesk heater, which has mysteriously started working again like it never broke.
DeleteHick speaks of that rail like I speak of my proposed handbasket factory. He has planned to put on a rail since we moved in, when Genius was three. Genius is now 23.
You get the rail yourself and wait until he is around to see you try to install it, do a really bad job and he will correct it. I know things.
DeleteWell, it kind of sounds like more pretend-work than I am willing to pretend-do...but it would be fun turning around all willy-nilly, trying to get a rail down the opening in the floor where the stairs are, whacking the bejeebers out of the front door, drywall, and antique mirror from my grandma's house that Hick bought at her estate auction.
DeleteI knew it! Another woman trick exposed.
DeleteHey, buddy! This is classified information! Who gave you clearance? I hope we don't have a leaker in our midst...
DeleteHey, did you ever think it might have been the thumper who bangs around in the night in the boy's room? You are one brave woman to be eating chili in a chilly basement. I say erect that handrail and watch Hick move in on your work.
ReplyDeleteI did not...until Kathy up above mentioned how it would have scared her if she was there alone. Then the more I considered it, the more it seemed plausible.
DeleteIt wouldn't be the first time something battery-operated put on a show in that basement! When Genius was a toddler, I was sleeping in the La-Z-Boy with infant Pony, and heard a noise down there in the wee hours of the morning. A kind of whirring and clunking sound. I freaked out.
I got up and woke Hick, who went downstairs and discovered a battery-operated plastic dump truck of Genius's that had come on and was ramming itself into things and backing up.
Let the record show that my dad died when The Pony was six weeks old, and my step-grandpa died when The Pony was about a month old. He used to give the grandkids (including HOS and The Veteran) the BEST presents (for THEM, not for me). Always something loud and mechanical, like police cars with sirens, and Macarena bears that danced to music.
I say get a good rail installed and wait and see how long it takes for Hick to notice it.
ReplyDeleteThat might take a couple weeks. Lately, Hick only goes down there to put his Storage Unit Store profits in the safe, and he's been "reinvesting" it in guns, which are good sellers. Last night he said he has 18 guns in his Store inventory right now. With deer and turkey seasons coming up, I guess he's sitting on a gold mine.
Delete