How Taco Bell Could Have Saved My Life

Or at least the life of one of my appliances.

Please refer to my friend Jeremy's excellent blog, www.martinidreams.blogspot.com for the credit on the title of my entry today. And read his entry. If it was on paper, it would be a real page-turner. Taco Bell was responsible for two terrible accidents this week, one of which is described below, the other is on Jeremy's site.

It was an ordinary day here in Sudbury, and for our ordinary supper, Jake made tacos. We usually eat tacos about once a week or so. I like to toast my shells in the toaster oven, to give them added crispiness. I was only toasting two shells, because I was making a taco salad, and was going to crumble them onto my lettuce, meat, salsa, cheese, and sour cream. Plus we only had six shells, so it worked out great for Jake who wanted 4 tacos. Knowing that the heating elements are too close to an intact taco shell, I broke the shells in half at the bend so they wouldn't have any height. I placed them onto the rack and set the toaster to half the amount of time required for toast. The oven felt warm when I opened it, so I asked Jake why. He'd made Hayden's chicken nuggets in there. I decreased the time even further because I knew a hot oven would toast the shells way faster than a cold one. I went across the kitchen to break up my lettuce and find the right bowl. Jake was at the stove assembling his tacos when I heard him say "fire" in a kind of calm, unpanicked voice. "What?" I said and turned around. The toaster oven was on fire! Jake opened it up and the few tiny flames burst into a big ball of bluish-orange inferno. I thought "my god! I don't have a fire extinguisher!" I needed my baking soda STAT! Unfortunately it was on my baking items shelf, the top one, and I couldn't reach it. I was trying to remain calm and Jake tried to put out the fire by blowing on it. I said "Don't blow on it! Close the door!" because of course, the added oxygen only made it worse. The closed door helped somewhat. My voice was shaking but I managed to get out the plea for Jake to reach down the baking soda. Jake told me to calm down. Then he turned the kitchen light off. I encountered another problem: when I opened the oven door to throw the baking soda in, the flames reared up very large. The other strange thing was the door wouldn't stay open. I don't know why, it normally would stay down if opened all the way. Maybe cuz I kept letting go before it was all the way down, since there were large flames leaping out at me. I dunno, just a theory in the after-thought of the situation. I wanted oven mits or a very long pole. After several attempts at opening the door, I took a moment to move the shredded cheese that was beside the toaster oven, so it wouldn't get ruined when I threw the baking soda at it. Those few extra moments with the door closed were enough for the flames to finally extinguish on their own. I opened the door and threw baking soda in anyway. I asked Jake to turn the light back on. I opened the back door to let the smoke out, and Jake turned on the ceiling fan. Then we laughed and laughed and laughed. My taco shells were not only scorched, they were incinerated. There was nothing left of them except a few black ash stalactites hanging from the wire rack.

If we had satisfied our taco cravings with Taco Bell, we would not have had this fire and would still have a very good Black and Decker toaster oven. I blame them completely.