The Choreography of a Coincidence

I burned a rice sock

I burned a rice sock the other day.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the above term, a rice sock is a modern day hot water bottle. You get a very large 100% cotton sock (think sock monkey socks--the kind your dad wears) and fill it almost to the top with rice, then tie it off with twine. When the sock is placed in the microwave for 2 minutes (and ONLY 2 minutes), the rice holds the heat for a surprisingly long time, thus warming up cold toes at the foot of the bed for a couple of hours. I'm told that rice socks are also very useful for sore necks, etc. The only drawback is that they do emit a pervading cooked rice odor, which is really not that bad compared with the smell produced when you burn one.

This marks a new low point in my culinary career--the incenerating of non-food objects in the microwave. In the past, I have started the occasional kitchen fire...the most memorable being the Flaming Sticky Bun episode of 1999. There were several details that made that fire the worst: the burning food was supposed to be consumed in less than an hour at Mr. Lonn's Sunday School, it wasn't my kitchen that was ablaze, and the 3 female witnesses to the fire have told the story to everyone I know. (The anecdote to all of this was that the fire occurred when we were all 4 upstairs getting ready for church...the smoke caused our hostess to jump out of the shower, race down the stairs, grab the fire extinguisher, and hose down the oven, all in the buff). The sticky buns were actually not that bad, just a little crispy.

I'll just leave it at that, as I'm sure Erin's comments to this post will elaborate further.