Last night my room mate Brittany died her hair with the help of her friend Tess and our next door neighbor Aubrey. I asked Aubrey if I could make angel hair pasta in her apartment so it wouldn't taste like hair dye. She agreed, so I filled a small pan with water, set it to boil on their stove, and went back next door to chat while I waited for the water to boil. After a few minutes of entertaining conversation I stepped onto our connecting balcony to check if the water had boiled and saw smoke billowing from around the pot. "Great," I thought, "Something's burning under the burner. Better go check it out." Five steps later I arrive in front of the stove just in time to watch the burner erupt into flames. I quickly moved the pan off the burner, which freed up more space and the flames grew.
Now, Aub's apartment had just done their dishes so the counter next to the stove was covered in nice, now dry, flammable cotton towels. In a split second I had discarded the idea of going for the fire extinguisher, or scouring the cupboards looking for baking soda, the pan of water next to me was no good since I remembered from 4-H that you never put water on a stove fire, so I did the only other thing I could think of. After reaching through the flames to turn off the burner (yeah, smart, I know)...I blew. It only took two or three tries, and the flames were gone. I've never been so glad to be full of hot air :)
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Couch Splunking
A little bit of background for this post:
I was really looking forward to this summer. About 75% of my close friends were going to be living in my apartment complex, almost all of us on the same floor and just a few doors away from each other. Then two of the apartments, housing most of our guy friends, caught fire just a week or two into summer vacation.The boys were moved to a house three blocks away called The Cube while their apartments were repaired/rebuilt. The management for The Cube, who are obviously out of touch with normal student housing schedules in the area, asked the boys to be out of the apartment by this morning. Yesterday I walked into my apartment after work to find out that we (my apartment and the neighboring girls apartment) were going to The Cube to help clean, and in return Jon Thompson would make us dinner on Sunday. Hey, I'm up for free food anytime, but cleaning a guys apartment? Oh well.
It only took us a few minutes to spread out once we arrived. Jen took on one of the bathrooms solo (brave soul!), Britt and Pan tackled the kitchen (and fought over who would have to clean the microwave), Aubrey and Jon swept through the downstairs cleaning like Speedy Gonzales with Scrubbing Bubbles, Braden was still packing up his own room, and Jason was finishing upstairs. That left me with the Common Room, consisting of one large floor, 3 couches, and 2 armchairs to vacuum.
Now, I'm a bit finicky about my vacuum. I spent good money on the thing after an errant nail went through the motor of our old one. I've already saved it from near death when a careless room mate nearly ripped a hole in the hose by vacuuming up a million hair pins. Needless to say, I was not going to just stick the hose down the couches without some idea of what would be coming out. Hence I found myself up (or down) to my wrists in the corners, back, and sides of the furniture. What I pulled back out was...well, take a look:
Assorted candy wrappers
Pretzels, candy, and cereal bits
$7.57 in spare change
Enough hair pins for 3 French Twists
1 very large hair pin, about 3 inches long and an inch wide
1 howl bracelet
1 acrylic finger nail (probably a pinkie nail and painted sparkly pink with a purple french tip)
2 yellow topaz studs (like from the pockets of fancy jeans)
1 broken ball chain anklet
1 small magnet
6 pens, blue, black and pink ink
4 paint balls with pink paint
2 sticks of gum still in wrappers
3 toothpicks
1 golf tee
1 red neck tie belonging to Jason
2 kool-aid packets - orange and fruit punch
1 food freshener packet like in food storage containers
1 small metal ball like a ball bearing
2 miscellaneous snap-like things, one says Victorinox, a fancy brand selling Swiss Army stuff
1 small black pocket comb
3 playing cards
1 tampon, still in wrapper but opened on one side
I admit that the thing which puzzled me most was the tampon. The boy's excuse for this object was "This must have been a girls apartment once," but since neither I, nor any of the girls I know, are in the habit of storing feminine products in our couches, that explanation doesn't fly with me. I came away from the experience $7.57 richer, much more amused, and slightly confused.
As a side note, once we were done cleaning we sat around the newly vacuumed common room talking. Braden snuck in with a frying pan full of firecrackers and set them off on one of my spic and span couches. I obviously told him he would have to re-vacuum all of it, and as a punishment I made him use their apartment's vacuum, which doesn't have any attachments or hose. In the awkward process of using the vacuum along the back of the couch, the bag for this ancient device EXPLODED. At this point I took pity on Braden and used my vacuum to help him clean up.
I was really looking forward to this summer. About 75% of my close friends were going to be living in my apartment complex, almost all of us on the same floor and just a few doors away from each other. Then two of the apartments, housing most of our guy friends, caught fire just a week or two into summer vacation.The boys were moved to a house three blocks away called The Cube while their apartments were repaired/rebuilt. The management for The Cube, who are obviously out of touch with normal student housing schedules in the area, asked the boys to be out of the apartment by this morning. Yesterday I walked into my apartment after work to find out that we (my apartment and the neighboring girls apartment) were going to The Cube to help clean, and in return Jon Thompson would make us dinner on Sunday. Hey, I'm up for free food anytime, but cleaning a guys apartment? Oh well.
It only took us a few minutes to spread out once we arrived. Jen took on one of the bathrooms solo (brave soul!), Britt and Pan tackled the kitchen (and fought over who would have to clean the microwave), Aubrey and Jon swept through the downstairs cleaning like Speedy Gonzales with Scrubbing Bubbles, Braden was still packing up his own room, and Jason was finishing upstairs. That left me with the Common Room, consisting of one large floor, 3 couches, and 2 armchairs to vacuum.
Now, I'm a bit finicky about my vacuum. I spent good money on the thing after an errant nail went through the motor of our old one. I've already saved it from near death when a careless room mate nearly ripped a hole in the hose by vacuuming up a million hair pins. Needless to say, I was not going to just stick the hose down the couches without some idea of what would be coming out. Hence I found myself up (or down) to my wrists in the corners, back, and sides of the furniture. What I pulled back out was...well, take a look:
Assorted candy wrappers
Pretzels, candy, and cereal bits
$7.57 in spare change
Enough hair pins for 3 French Twists
1 very large hair pin, about 3 inches long and an inch wide
1 howl bracelet
1 acrylic finger nail (probably a pinkie nail and painted sparkly pink with a purple french tip)
2 yellow topaz studs (like from the pockets of fancy jeans)
1 broken ball chain anklet
1 small magnet
6 pens, blue, black and pink ink
4 paint balls with pink paint
2 sticks of gum still in wrappers
3 toothpicks
1 golf tee
1 red neck tie belonging to Jason
2 kool-aid packets - orange and fruit punch
1 food freshener packet like in food storage containers
1 small metal ball like a ball bearing
2 miscellaneous snap-like things, one says Victorinox, a fancy brand selling Swiss Army stuff
1 small black pocket comb
3 playing cards
1 tampon, still in wrapper but opened on one side
I admit that the thing which puzzled me most was the tampon. The boy's excuse for this object was "This must have been a girls apartment once," but since neither I, nor any of the girls I know, are in the habit of storing feminine products in our couches, that explanation doesn't fly with me. I came away from the experience $7.57 richer, much more amused, and slightly confused.
As a side note, once we were done cleaning we sat around the newly vacuumed common room talking. Braden snuck in with a frying pan full of firecrackers and set them off on one of my spic and span couches. I obviously told him he would have to re-vacuum all of it, and as a punishment I made him use their apartment's vacuum, which doesn't have any attachments or hose. In the awkward process of using the vacuum along the back of the couch, the bag for this ancient device EXPLODED. At this point I took pity on Braden and used my vacuum to help him clean up.
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