Back when my oldest was 12 yo he loved to cook. As any good mom, I stayed in the kitchen with him. One day he was making donut holes, frying them in hot grease. There was a knock at the door and I went to answer it. It was a friend dropping off her dog for the weekend for us to dog sit. She had just gotten her dog out of the hospital where it had been diagnosed with a nervous condition. My son came out and offered her some donut holes and went back in the kitchen to make more. She was giving me the dog’s meds and explaining when and how to give them to the dog. Next thing I know there was a great big pink fireball shooting across my kitchen. I ran for the kitchen as my 2 boys were in there. When I got there, heat detectors and smoke detectors started going off… loudly! My boys were backed up against the fridge holding each other. The poor dog was really upset, the heat detectors don’t turn off until you manually turn them off and the smoke detectors had to have fresh air waved in front of them…
When I made sure everyone was OK I asked what happened. Nobody had a decent answer. I looked at the burnt kitchen and all the smoke and fire damage… then I saw it… an ice cube sitting in the dispenser tray melting. I asked the kids if they had thrown an ice cube into the grease… they denied it. I told them I saw the ice cube in the dispenser… they admitted they were trying a science experiment. What happens when you throw an ice cube into a pot of hot grease? Ask my boys… they know!
We never did dog sit after that… the poor pooch had such a rough weekend we thought it would have to go back to the animal hospital. My kitchen still bears some of the damage… bubbled paint on cupboards and the soffit. That was 8 yrs ago… they never made donut holes again!
We got such a fright. Anyway, John kept his cool and put out the flames without anything else going on fire and we feel really blessed to be ‘all ok’.