Macaroni

If I were a betting man, I would say that I have a photograph of the worst example of burnt food in a microwave oven that you've ever seen. If you can't stand the suspense, scroll to the bottom of the post to see it for yourself.

Last Saturday, we had a few people over to watch the Saints game. We ate buffalo wings and white beans during the day.

Culinary aside: I (incorrectly) predicted that after a day of eating wings, beans, and drinking, that Mrs. theskinnyonbenny would have horrible complaints about my flatulence the next day. I thought for sure that she would screech that I needed to see a doctor about the unnatural churnings of my body. But it turns out that it wasn't too bad.

V didn't go hungry throughout the day, but he wasn't much on hot wings and white beans either. So in the evening, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny popped some leftover macaroni into the microwave for him and set the time.

Both she and our friend Lisa heard the microwave beep a few minutes later, and they assumed that it was finished. In the course of three minutes, V was running wild in a different part of the house, so they went outside to drink, leaving the food in the microwave for when his little brain got back around to the request.

Some number of minutes later, Mel went into the kitchen and discovered smoke pouring out of the microwave. She roused me from a half-drunk full, content laziness on the couch by yelling, "YOUR KITCHEN IS ON FIRE!!!"

I went in, opened the microwave door, and was immediately engulfed by smoke. It wasn't just normal smoke -- it burnt the eyes and lungs most horribly. Perhaps it isn't funny, but I had to chuckle at Mel's frantic attempts to herd the unherdable children out of the kitchen. They were running wild, wondering what all the commotion was about. Somehow, I noticed that there was still another 47 minutes to go on the microwave timer.

While I was fumbling with trying to get the trash can over to the microwave, she snagged a potholder and had the smoldering mess out the back door in record time. But by then, the smoke had filled the kitchen, and filled the ceiling area upstairs.

Six days later, the smell is almost -- but not quite -- gone.

So on to the picture...

You will notice that there isn't much of the tupperware left. Nothing was thrown away. Any missing tupperware is melted into the burnt macaroni.