Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Mr. One Speed

After a long, arduous, 2500+/- round-trip journey to NC &SC we are home. Every time I make this trip, I swear I'll never make a road trip again. When we go to Texas, we drive just as many miles because relatives and friends are stretched from Brownood, Stephenville, Denton, DFW Metroplex, Ferris/Ennis, Wolfe City and Houston. these points are 50-200 miles apart.

Today is a short story about an incident I witnessed between my husband (H) and his sister, my sister-in-law (SIL). We were eating a light meal: As I remember I sliced an apple. (H) was eating a sandwich and SIL had something else.

We had lots of leftovers from which to assemble numerous meals. SIL's generous friends, church family and her husband's family provided a stream of casseroles, desserts and entrees for the last few weeks of her husband's illness and death.

H & SIL wanted toast. H quickly made his in the toaster, and, after grace was offered, commenced to consume his assembled sandwich. SIL made her toast in a toaster oven which seemed to take longer, so she offered the grace and began to eat other parts of her meal.

We each were concentrating on our delicacies when the acrimonious odor of burning bread began to permeate the air. SIL looked back at the toast oven to see her bread in flames and smoke billowing out into the kitchen, dining and living area.She ran to the kitchen and unplugged the oven but the flaming bread kept burning like a baked Alaskan dessert. The slow, undulating flame was enchantingly contained in the oven; I should have grabbed my camera.

Meanwhile former firefighter H and I sat like bumps on a log, transfixed by the scene. SIL called her brother to help extinguish the flames. He arose from the table and moseyed into the kitchen area.

Now this is not a long distance but he seemed suspended in time, plodding slowly to the kitchen. "Hurry up," SIL said. "I'm coming," he said.

There was discussion how to extinguish the burning log in the toaster oven. H slowly grabbed a dishrag in the sink, saturated it to dripping with water. Then he opened the toaster oven door as more smoke pour out into the room.

H threw the dishrag into the oven covering the now burning ember, which once was bread. The water sizzled and hissed, and the smoke finally ceased to permeate the room, although there was a visible layer hanging from the ceiling.

The silence which often follows an accident or crisis was interrupted by my coughing response to the smoke.

After the crisis was over, the fire scenario became humorous with SIL marveling how slow--could we say deliberate--H, her brother, responded to the crisis. One could say he never panicked nor did his pulse, heart or breathing rate increase; neither did his blood pressure..

After 41 years of marriage I can say,and he will agree, he has only one speed, SLOW. I'm sure SIL will agree.

12 comments:

Amber Star said...

Welcome home from your sad journey. Your story was so true and so funny...and I'm so surprised he didn't get electrocuted when he threw the wet rag onto the flaming "toast" in the ELECTRIC toaster oven. And ya'll call yourselves grownups. :)

Missed you bunches, but managed to sort of stay out of trouble...in fact I attended a party a fun party at a church that had been converted to a home. We had fun. My cousin and I laughed and laughed. When you get rested come on by. I'll try to have some pictures up of the shindig.

Sniffles and Smiles said...

Oh, now that sounds like something I would do! And the response? Oh, dear, I hate to admit it...but it would probably take that long for me to figure out what to do...although I'd probably be in a panic the entire time...(laughing). Too funny! I love it! So glad you are home! Really missed you!!! Love you much!! Janine XO

faye said...

Funny story... but oh the poor toast... I like toast a million different ways, but not in flames.

Lisa said...

Oh! Man! Cute Post....Slow is good...My father was always slow and I really think that paid off for him. :)

Lorna said...

That was the living-out of one of my nightmares. A burning toaster-oven always seems like a pretty likely occurrence to me---I'm forever cleaning out the crumbs and simultaneously wishing the damn thing would stop being so efficient. altogether so much scarier than a toaster, where my big fear is only electrocution.

Arkansas Patti said...

So glad you are back safely from your long trip.
Funny story and funnier yet how we all react differently to such situations.
Welcome back.

Pat - Arkansas said...

I'm happy that you're home safely from your journey. I laughed (sorry) about the burning toast, but only because it reminded me of the occasion that I let the bag of popcorn stay in the microwave so long that it burst into flames. What an horrific smell! It took days to get the odor out of the house, and the microwave, although still functional, even after agressive cleaning still reeked so much of burned popcorn that it soon went to that great scrapheap in the sky.

CHERI said...

This was so funny! Guess H believes in stopping & smelling the roses in life! Think how aggravatng it would be to be married to a speed demon that never slowed down!

Jinksy said...

My husband was like that - only he had two speeds - dead slow, and stop! Glad the flames did no lasting damage...

Anonymous said...

Sounds like "slow" has served him well.

Sniffles and Smiles said...

Just stopping by to give you my love, and to say once more, "I'm SO glad you're home!" Love, Janine XO

Liz Hinds said...

Another great story!