I Need A New Crockpot AKA How I Nearly Caught My Apartment On Fire April 22, 2008

Have you ever walked into your kitchen and thought you smelled something hot…something scorched….an odor in the air just strong enough in the air to make you pause and look around.  Yeah, we’ve probably all been there once or twice. 

That was what greeted me when I got home this evening.  I checked the oven and the stovetop and everything was off.  Since we live in an apartment, I figured the upstairs or next-door neighbors were cooking and something got away from them.  The odor wasn’t strong, just enough to notice.  So I chalked it up to nothing more than an overly done grilled cheese from one of the neighbors. 

When T got home a little bit later, he walked into the kitchen, stopped, and asked me if something was burning.  Still stumped by the mysterious smell, I told him that I had noticed the same thing when I got home but hadn’t been able to find anything amiss.  Still assuming it was a neighbor’s cooking, we went about our nightly activities. 

A couple of hours later, T headed into the kitchen for a drink and calls out, “Hey, I found what was burning!” 

Here’s a couple of photos of what he found. 

Notice if you will, the pieces of ziploc baggie stuck to the side and rim of the crockpot.  See that red lid on top?  It’s not resting on the other lids.  Oh, no.  It’s fused to the side of the crockpot itself.  Yeah, I’ll be throwing the whole shebang out.  The addition of melted plastic to my crockpot just doesn’t seem to conducive to efficient or safe crockpotting.  While I could probably pull all of the lids off and scrape off most of the baggie, I just don’t feel it would be safe to cook in.  The fact that it’s a very inexpensive crockpot makes that an easier decision, but I’d probably say the same thing even if it cost me a lot more. 

Now that we’ve examined the evidence, how did this happen you ask!  Please, let me explain.  Since I have a very small kitchen, I try to maximize storage space.  One of the ways I do that is to store the lids and containers for my mini-blender in a ziploc bag in the crockpot when it’s not being used.  Since I cooked with it this past weekend, the stoneware portion of the pot is in the sink awaiting a good scrub down and the baggie with it’s contents was sitting straight the metal, heating portion of the crockpot. 

Apparently, when I shoved it back into it’s corner on the counter yesterday, the switch bumped against the other items on the counter and flipped on to the low setting.  The plastic bag full of lids and whatnot has been slowly melting over the past 24 hours!  I usually unplug my crockpot when it’s not in use, but for some reason, I forgot to do that yesterday.  Accckkkk!

The Lord definitely protected us from me accidentally starting a fire.  I am so grateful for His protection.  Reminds me of one Sunday when I was I guess about 12.  I saw Mom slip out of the choir loft during the service never to reappear.  When I headed home after church, she was at home and said she had remembered mid-service that she left some water boiling on the stove before we left for church that morning.  She went home and caught it before it caught fire.  Luckily, we lived right across the street from our church at the time.  She got there just in time.  The pot was completely dry and starting to smoke from the heat!  God definitely protects. 

As Psalm 4:8 says, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O’ Lord, make me to dwell in safety.”  Thank you, Father!