Why Geeks Should Not Cook

This is a 100% true story that happened in my own kitchen last night. 

First off, I should say that I love to cook.  So I’m not, by any means, saying that geeks are not capable of cooking.  I’m just suggesting that…if you’re going to cook, you might want to keep your attentions on that.

It all started with a suggestion from me.  BigJones and I had a friend over to play Halo 3, and I thought everyone might like a snack.  Popcorn is usually the snack of choice around our apartment, so BigJones went to make that.  We aren’t huge fans of microwave popcorn, so we usually pop it ourselves on the stove.  BigJones has always been the master of popcorn around here, so I didn’t think twice when he started to heat up the oil on the stove.

BIG mistake.

A few minutes later, we were all sitting around the TV getting ready to play some Halo.  I glanced over into the kitchen, and saw smoke rising up from the pot.  All I thought was Well damnit, BigJones ruined the popcorn.  And I said, “Babe, the popcorn.”

“Yeah, okay,” he answers, not getting up.  Even as he says this, the smoke is coming up thicker and faster.

“BIGJONES, GET THE F***ING POPCORN!”

He finally looks over and leaps into the kitchen (luckily, it’s right next to the living room in our apartment).  He grabs the pot—

Now, I should point out that when he started heating up the oil, he made two very big mistakes.  First, he turned the burner on HIGH.  All the f***ing way up!  Second, he put the cover on the pot.  So what happens when burning oil suddenly gets a rush of oxygen?

FWOOOSH

Basically, the biggest flame I’ve ever seen in a kitchen, much less in a building (in our home, of all places) leaps out of the pot.

Luckily, the particular pot he used has a long handle, so in one fluid motion, he dropped the cover, grabbed the handle, took it to the sink, and tried dousing it with water.

Another FWOOOSH! and the flame leapt even higher!  There are cupboards over our sink, so I screamed, “Don’t light the f***ing cupboards on fire you idiot!” (yeah, I know, I show such concern for the love of my life….)

Obviously water isn’t the best idea, but how else do you put a pot of foot-tall flames of oil out?  So BigJones cranked the faucet (fortunately, our faucet pours out water like a dam broke behind it) and thrust the pot underneath the water. 

A flash, and a wet fizzling sound, and it’s out.

But now there’s tons of smoke!  All the fire alarms started going off, and I just hoped that no firemen would show up.  We opened up all the windows and our friend grabbed whatever he could to fan at the fire alarms.  At this point, I was still freaking out a little bit, and then BigJones announced that he burned his hand.  I know how bad oil burns can be, so I started worrying even more.

Once we got the smoke out of the apartment, BigJones wrapped a handtowel full of ice around his hand, and I inspected the pot and sink area.  Everything was fine.  No scorch marks, no damage anywhere.  After about a half hour BigJones said his hand was fine and he wanted to play Halo. 

But, I still wanted popcorn.  So I made it this time.

The moral of the story?

Don’t let a geek cook when they are being geeky!