Meltdown

About a week ago, my suitemate's sister came to visit for a couple of days and brought her cute little girl with her as well. She's about a year and a half old.

On the morning of the day they left, I was in my room and typing on the computer when there was a loud *POP*, and all of the lights go out. So I did the necessary confused freeze-and-blink, and then got up and looked into the kitchen. The three of them were there, little Antonia scooped up in her mother's arms. I asked if they knew what was up.

So apparently, while one sister was preoccupied and the other was taking a brief shower, Antonia had tottered out to the kitchen and fooled with the stove dials. 1, 2 and 3 out of 4, to be exact. Previously sitting in the back on Burner #2 was our water boiler. Now sitting in the back on Burner #2 was something resembling our water boiler leaning pathetically from a pedestal of hot, melted, gooey plastic.

From Living in Regensburg

My brave roommate somehow managed to successfully bring all the lights back up after messing with the switchbox. So... the kitchen smelled awful, but at least nothing happened to the little girl. I would have been heart-broken. (When I was around her age, I had a stove top accident myself, but my hands weren't so lucky).

My suitemate fortunately managed to do a pretty clean job of prying the thing off after we let it cool. Now it's still sitting in my room. Because I have this odd reluctance to let it go. I need to throw it away already, but it just keeps amusing me.

When it was on our kitchen table, I joked to my roommate that I felt the need to put a small label plaque next to it with the words,

"Untitled"
Antonia, 2008