BURNED BACON

Okay, stand me up against the wall and shoot me. The other morning I was cooking my breakfast and I had several slices of bacon in a skillet. The kitchen smelled of coffee and bacon being cooked. Then.... the phone rang.

It was my aunt calling from Laramie, WY. So, instead of letting the call go to voicemail, I answered. I could have sworn that I had turned off the burner. I guess I didn't. We talked for about a half hour. The next thing I know, Nugget is acting like he needs out. But he is wanting to go out the front door, instead of the back door.

As I told my aunt that I needed to go, and was just hanging up the phone,  I caught a whiff of something burning. Nugget would not even go into the kitchen. There was smoke. LOTS of smoke. I took a deep breath, ran to the back door, and flung it open. 

I went to the stove and saw that the burner had not been shut off, but that I had, instead, turned it the other way. All the way down to lower than low. Duh. So there I was with this really hot skillet, and these black things in the bottom of the skillet. (Remember the black snakes that we would light up on the 4th of July on the side walks when we were kids?)

I took a oven mitt, picked up the skillet, and proceeded to take the whole mess out into the backyard. I found a nice level spot away from the house and placed the skillet on a few bricks. I heard someone whistle. It dawned on me, I had run outside in my lounge pants, and a t-shirt. 

I looked, but could not find the culprit. It had to be one of three neighbors. (None of them have confessed yet. ) I ran back indoors, and opened the front door to get a breeze going through the house. Nugget layed in front of the door and flopped down on his side. I swear he made a few of those fake coughing noises and gave me the darnedest look.

I turned on the ceiling fan, and got out our summer fan, and cranked them both on high. I had the summer fan facing into the kitchen to blow the smoke towards the back door. I also grabbed a hand fan to help move the smoke. It took a while. I got the smoke out. I left both doors open for just about the whole day. As the house was airing out, I got dressed and went to check on my skillet. 

The skillet was fine and those black things that used to be bacon? I tossed them further into the backyard. Guess what? The magpies won't even eat those things. Nugget gave them wide berth as he made his midmorning rounds to his poop patch. I cleaned up the skillet and stovetop. Later in the day, I closed the front door, and turned off the fans.

When Kathi came home from work she said that the house smelled of bacon. I told her that I had bacon for breakfast. Nugget gave me a dirty look. I picked up the black bacon the other day, along with all of Nuggets leavings. They were hauled away by the trash guys. 

Man, I'm glad that Nugget can't talk.