Remember when...

Remember when Mom made home made chocolate chip cookies and in the process of preventing us kids from eating every last one on the day they were made, she set fire to the oven with her Tupperware?

I had a similar experience yesterday, with a significant difference. While Mom's story had the loving message of making cookies for your kids, mine was one of procrastination.

I was trying to remove some of the previous night's dishes from open view before my visiting teachers arrived when I hit on a fabulous idea - I would hide them in the oven. I remember thinking, as I carefully placed the pieces in hiding, that I couldn't forget them. I recalled Mom's experience and vowed that wouldn't happen to me because I would remember.

Then, it was dinnertime. I was reading a magazine at the table as I preheated the oven for dinner and noticed a particularly plastic smell coming from the oven.

I jumped up and opened the oven door. The white plastic strainer I had placed towards the back of the oven was significantly smaller than it was when I hid it. The other items were all okay; the strainer was the only piece resting directly on the rack.

I removed the entire rack from the oven and placed it on the stove. I was able to remove the strainer before it began to drip plastic all over. Then I put it into a sink full of cold water to stop the baking process.

Kids were all very impressed with my plastic sculpture when they saw what I had done.

I learned a very important lesson through this experience. Never hide your plastics in the oven - place them in the fridge, dishwasher, laundry room, or anywhere besides the oven!