A visit from the fire brigade

A quiet Friday evening quickly turned loud when a chemical stench and thick gray smoke came pouring out of the oven. Having made no-bake cookies earlier in the week, my roommate had forgotten that the place she'd left the cookies to settle and cool was still being occupied by the tasty treats when she turned on the oven to pre-heat it for a pizza.

The old rickety windows were too hard to get open in time to prevent the apartment building smoke alarm from blaring at full volume. Soon, the building was being evacuated and fire trucks were at our doorstep with sirens blaring. Terribly embarrassing, but most of the neighbors were nice about it. On the plus side, the fire fighters were pretty handsome.

When our handsome heroes gave the okay to return to the building, my roommate and I found a unique form of modern oven art awaiting our arrival.

The thin plastic cutting board had almost entirely melted beneath the oatmeal peanut butter chocolate no-bake cookies and thin wax paper that held them.

While the stench of burned plastic filled our apartment for the remainder of the evening, with the help of the fan and fresh fall air circulating through the windows we finally got opened, it mostly dissipated by morning. Luckily, there was no permanent damage and we were able to remove every bit of the melted plastic from the oven. Whew! I wonder if I'll be getting a returned phone call from the property manager tomorrow. Guess we'll see...