Another reason not to cook

Being single and not having kids to feed, I don't have to cook very often - and I don't. But, over the last few months I have put on quite a bit of weight (20 - 25 pounds!) and I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to take it back off. I keep buying fruits and vegetables and making the cabbage soup but well, it doesn't work if you don't then eat the food and stick to the diet, but I digress.

I think it was Monday of this week (because I think it was Dancing with the Stars that I was watching) that I was making yet another batch of cabbage soup. I had pulled out my trusty cutting board with three "legs" (who the heck knows what happened to the fourth leg!) to chop the ingredients on. But, since it only has three legs, I stuffed a paper towel under the board where the fourth leg would be so that it wouldn't be unstable while I chopped things up on it. I'd placed it on the stove for some unknown reason. Anyway, after I'd chopped everything up and put the ingredients (including water) in the pot, I wiped down the stove top with the paper towel before I put it on to "cook".

I'd decided that I wasn't going to follow the cabbage soup diet completely but rather try to follow Weight Watchers, incorporating the soup. So, this is why I decided to also hard boil some eggs while I was cooking the soup (my morning snack at work). I put in five eggs added water, turned on another burner and went into the living room to watch DWTS (I think). The plan was to go back and check on things during the first commercial and if the eggs had started boiling, to set the timer.

Well, I get into the living room and start wondering if I'd turned on the right burner under the eggs. See, since I don't cook often - or much variety when I do - I rarely use more than one burner at a time. And when I do, I usually use one of the back burners - which I hadn't for the eggs. Even though this doubt was in the back of mind (whether I'd turned on the right burner), I was still going to wait until the first commercial to check things out. Only, I couldn't stand it. I had to go check it out. And it was a good thing I did! Not only had I turned on the wrong burner (I had turned on one of the back burners that I would've normally used), the paper towel I'd used to support the cutting board and then used to wipe down the stove top was on the burner I'd turned on. (I would have sworn I threw it away!)

Thankfully I don't have a stove top that works with actual flames or I would have been in serious trouble. However, the paper towel had that look a fire in your fireplace gets. You know, the one that if you give it one good blow it catches fire and you're good to go. Yeah, that one.

I freaked out a little bit because I knew I couldn't just pick up the paper towel (or at least I didn't think I should). But you know what? Tongs are really good for that kind of thing so I grabbed my tongs and flung the thisclosetobeingonfire paper towel into the soaking doggy bowl in the sink. Since I don't make a habit of intentionally setting fires, I'm not sure if the smoke that followed (and filled my kitchen) was because of the almost fire or the putting out of the almost fire. Either way my house smelled like smoke for two days.

In any event, the crisis was averted but created a perfect excuse to not cook and order take-out instead. :)