"When I was first married..."

I was reading Real Simple magazine during one of my few down times, and I came across to this brief narrative, but that stood out greatly for me.

Allow me to enlighten you:

"When I was first married, I once vacuumed up some spilled tuna salad. (I was young and clearly didn't know a lot about housework.) A few weeks later, we noticed a terrible odor coming from the closet. My husband sniffed around and determined it was the vacuum cleaner. He cut open the bag, and out poured mounds of maggots." - Real Simple, May 2010, page 206.

To me, I'm starting to highly dislike the phrase, "When I was first married" because it hold few embarrassing stories that I just know I will laugh about it later.

That "later" came just a month later. I've decided to add this to my narrative of my daily life.

The picture above demonstrates what happens when you don't have a hot pad under your pan after using the pan. In my defense, I was frazzled, trying to get lunch to Jared and myself before our crazy schedule whisks us away from food that gives us energy for the day. Then again, many kitchen accidents happens when the chef is frazzled.

Yes, I feel bad about it. Tail between my legs if I have any.

But my "when I was first married" lore is not done. Not yet, you are in for a treat, my readers. Just be thankful it isn't you.

I caused a fire. Yes. A kitchen fire. It was particularly because I was motivated to be a good wife, make a good supper for the husband. However, the food didn't work with me. I had food in oven, and when I checked on it.

FIRE CAME OUT OF THE OVEN!

I tried to remain calm. My cooking buddy, Zach fought bravely, using the wet rag, whipping the fire. It continued to burn, so I scurried over to use the videophone to call 911.

The interpreter, as I clearly marked in blue arrow, overreacted, trying to catch everything I'm saying, while I was calm, because I knew that the fire (see above for a better image of what it is like) is contained, I just need the firefighters to come, in case it won't stop.

The interpreter's receptive skills deteriorated when I mentioned fire, as she bounced around and trying to be calm to relay the emergency to the 911 operator.

Meanwhile, Zach gave up the wet rag fighting gig, he resorted to a pot full of soapy water, and threw it on the fire. It worked like a charm.

Then the house was very smoky, and I would assume that the smoke alarms went off, but I had no idea.


To demonstrate how smoky the house was, not the actual photograph of the house, obviously, but it was smoky.

Firefighters came by in 10 minutes to 15 minutes. They took a bit longer because they couldn't figure out my address.

Jeff Foxworthy's voice came up in my mind's ear, "You know when you are a redneck when... you live in a house that shares the same address, 5555, and 5555 1/2." Who else does that?!

Fortunately, the fire issue was resolved. The only blooper was the melted oven knob, and yellowed counter which was white before. Easy-Off Oven Cleaner was my best friend at that time. So was baking soda and water paste. It took the soot off. It just took up my evening, eating pizza and scrubbing the kitchen.

Google just was my remedy for my accidents, because I was able to figure out how to take the soot off from google search results.

Unfortunately, it doesn't end right there.

Meet Dirk, the Dryer... Dirk the Dryer, meet my Mrs. Paulson blog readers.

Now, we are associated with one another.
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I'll allow Dirk the Dryer to tell the story.

"Thank you, Mrs. Paulson. Now, I was doing my duties faithfully, drying all clothes that my friend, Wendy the Washer has washed. However, after this one fateful load, I felt that there was something wrong with my load. So, my friend, Chelsea, checked me. Sure enough. She sees this."

"PINK CLOTHES! However, I know Chelsea didn't add red clothing in this pile, but it became pink for some reason. So Chelsea investigated where the source may be."

"Man, my insides were messed up. See, I look like I suffered war within myself, cancer from doing my duties faithfully!"

"That was THE SOURCE! Construction marking crayon from roommate's load of laundry!"

"As you can see in the picture, the crayon on the right was "before" while the crayon on the left was the "after" effect of a trip in my insides," sighed Dirk the Dryer.

"Fortunately, there was something called "Google", Chelsea googled on how to remove crayon from the dryer, and she noticed many other people who had the similiar bloopers as she had, she felt less alone in this situation. Google suggested WD-40 with magic eraser. Chelsea started scrubbing, using the called ingredients, then used a clean magic eraser with no oil residue to remove the remaining crayon marks. It kind of tickles when she scrubbed, removing the cancerous crayon marks."

"That was the end result, I feel so healthy again, and I can continue doing my duties as a faithful dryer!"

Dirk did a wonderful job with this load. It looks more white now.

There is a hope for this newlywed wife, after all, finding solutions for my bloopers here and there.