Feeling: sheepish
Listening to: Nimsay watch anime in her room
Reading/Watching: Friends re-runs

Once, my sister broke a glass pan.

I think I was nine or so, the day Mom went out on errands and left the four of us at home to do summertime kid-stuff, assuming that children aged fourteen, eleven, nine, and five couldn't possibly blow anything up in two short hours.

Mom was wrong.

Bear wanted to make jello (I think it was peach-flavored), so she started digging around, and couldn't find a metal cake pan, so grabbed a 13x9 glass pan, instead. Then she set it on the stove burner, put in the ingredients, and started warming it up.

About five minutes later, we discovered that when glass is heated on the stove, it tends to explode.

We were in the living room watching TV, and suddenly there was a loud bang. We jumped up and ran to the kitchen, and there were scorched shards of glass scattered throughout the room, and bits of jello catching fire on the red-hot burner. Maffrew dove for the pantry, and grabbed the fire extinguisher. He whooped like a cowboy when he got to use it for the first (and only) time in his life. Then he spent the rest of the day (and week and month) telling everyone about his act of heroism (you think that's bad, you should hear about the time Maffrew was fifteen, and broke his ankle surfing down a playground slide. He told all the cute girls on the swim team that it got broken when he was working as a lifeguard and rescued a big thrashing guy).

So anyway, that was the way we learned that glass plus stove equals bad.

You'd think it would stick in my head.

Then, today I put my dinner in a pot on the stove and turned it on. Five minutes later, I was talking to Nimsay at my computer desk and I heard an oddly familiar bang, because Katie is stupid and can't read the diagram on the top of the stove that identifies which knob corresponds to which burner, so the one underneath the glass pan half-full of walnut turtle brownies came on instead, and we had bits of glass, caramel, and brownie all over everywhere.

I think Nimsay is scarred for life, since she got to watch the explosion happen, and apparently watching razor-sharp bits of glass come flying toward your face is less than thrilling.

Me, I got to sweep up scorched, chocolatey glass for half an hour. And then I finally scrubbed clean the metal burner-guards, which has been on my "going-to-do" list since September or so. So yay for a bright side.

And Bear? For all the times we made fun of you and your brilliant exploding-glass adventure, I give you a free coupon to return the favor.

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