Through Fire and Fluff: How I Survived a Kitchen Calamity

The flash point for your average marshmallow is 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  I know this because my wife attempted to burn down our house with marshmallows a few days ago. 

I was in our office when the cry for help came.  My wife has very distinct tones for different scenarios.  There’s the “standard operations” tone for normal situations, the “I’m tolerating this because for some reason I still love you” tone for when I go hard on puns, and my personal favorite, “Mama Bear is gonna’ cut you” tone for when she thinks someone has mistreated our son. 

This time, however, it was the “things have escalated” tone.  Given how competent my wife usually is, this tone is used as often as a hurricane alarm in North Dakota.  I jerked upright and ran to the kitchen, ready for anything from a knife wound to an intruder soon to have a knife wound.

Fortunately, there was no blood or intruder.  Unfortunately, our oven was on fire.  On the top rack sat an entire tray of marshmallows, burning merrily away as though an entire Boy Scout troop had set up shop in our kitchen.  I was torn on which hurt more, the potential loss of our house or the sure loss of whatever my wife had been baking. 

My wife and I made eye contact.  This is one of those moments where two people who know each other well can have an entire conversation in the single beat of synchronized hearts without saying a word.  Ours went something like this:

“What did you do?” I asked, knowing the answer but needing to have it confirmed anyways.

“Does that really matter right now?” she countered, as the kitchen began smelling like a campfire gone horribly wrong.

“Fair.  This would be an excellent time to know if our homeowner’s insurance covers marshmallow-based arson.”

“Or you could just focus and put the fire out before that becomes an issue.”

“Ahh, that makes sense.  I’ll get right on that.”

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

“Try and save the marshmallows—I need them for a recipe I’m trying.”

I looked at the roaring flames in our oven, then back to my wife.  “Yeah, I don’t see that happening.”

Plan of action in hand, I leapt to my wife’s defense.  Luckily, we had prepared for just such a culinary emergency by buying a fire extinguisher.  I threw the sink cupboard open, grabbed the extinguisher, and rose like a 90s action hero ready to save the day and win the girl.  I aimed at my adversary and uttered my catchphrase: “You’re fired.”

I pulled the trigger.  But instead of a white fountain of justice, all I got was a soft click.  Looking down, I saw that the safety pin was still in place.  “I can salvage this”, I thought to myself.  “Just think how cool this will look to my wife when I pull the pin and toss it across the room like a matador twirling his cape.”

Alas, it was not to be.  You know that little plastic tab that they helpfully put on fire extinguishers to ensure the pin doesn’t fall out in transit?  Yeah, that was still locking in the pin.  The phrase hero to zero crossed my mind, and I considered whether or not throwing the extinguisher at the fire would be a suitable last act of defiance.

Thankfully, my wife recognized the problem and intervened.  She whipped out a pair of junk drawer scissors like a sheriff facing down a desperado at high noon pulling out her six shooter.  The tab got cut, the pin got removed, and I was back in the fight.

I turned to face the foe once more, and started with an updated catchphrase: “If you can’t handle the heat…”

“Put the fire out!” my wife yelled.

“…get out of the kitchen,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled the trigger.  White foam covered the luminous marshmallows, and the crisis was at an end.  I stood there, triumphant in my moment of victory, prepared to humbly receive my well-deserved accolades.

Instead, my wife went over to the tray of marshmallows and prodded their charcoal husks with a fork.  “I think I can salvage these.”

Maybe I needed a better catchphrase.