Kitchen, husband OK after explosion

We had a kitchen disaster the other day, and it wasn’t my fault.

I think my episodes have been well-documented. Usually, they involve my attempts to prepare food — from putting cabbage on a sandwich instead of lettuce to leaving the sugar out of a pumpkin pie.

I quit while I was ahead.

I enjoy my husband’s home-cooking though, and I believe I’ve made that pretty clear.

Sometimes, though, more than he likes, I want to go out to eat.

When I mentioned going out on this particular day, he said he was making spaghetti. He uses his mom’s sauce recipe, and although it’s not exactly the same, it’s pretty wonderful.

As he worked in the kitchen, I sat my lazy self in front of the computer. At the appropriate time, I planned to put ice in the glasses and pour the tea.

Suddenly, I heard an explosion. In my mind, I thought maybe he’d broken a glass. A really big glass.

The kitchen was covered with little pieces of glass. Cov-erd. My husband accidentally turned on the wrong burner on the stove, and an empty 13-by-9-inch Pyrex baking dish was sitting on the burner.

My first response was, “Did it hurt the countertops?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” my husband said.

“Well, you didn’t scream or anything. I figured you were OK,” I said.

Had he not been standing on the other side of the kitchen with his back to the stove, he really could have been hurt.

He was barefoot, and a piece of glass did cut the back of his ankle. He also had to walk across the layer of glass to get out of the kitchen. He made some Die Hard reference.

I walked in — crunch, crunch, crunch.

One time at my parents’ house, I did something similar, but it was a glass lid on the stove. My husband reminded me that a flying piece of glass gouged Mom’s floor, and she didn’t let me forget it for a long, long time. She has since gotten a new floor.

My husband and I looked at the mess. The sauce had big chunks of glass in it.

“We could strain it,” he said, jokingly. At least, I think.

We cleaned for an hour, picking up big pieces by hand, sweeping, then vacuuming.

Pieces of glass had blown across the kitchen and into the next room.

I texted my mother a picture, and her response was: “Is anyone hurt? How are the countertops?”

The story had a happy ending — the countertops are fine, thank goodness, and I got to eat out.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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