Morning Plans Gone Up In Smoke

(I am about eight years old. I wake up before my parents one Sunday morning and decide I want to do something nice for them and make breakfast. Setting the table goes fine, making tea goes fine — water-heater, so no stove involved — but then I come to the bread. On a normal Sunday, my mom will eat just a few slices of bread, my dad a croissant, and I a breakfast roll. The thing is, I don’t know the breakfast rolls are bake-off bread, while the other stuff is just frozen. So, little oblivious me just puts everything in the microwave to defrost it. When the microwave pings, the slices and croissant are ready, but the roll still looks “frozen.” No biggie, I think; maybe it just needs longer to defrost. So, I put the roll back in the microwave, set the timer as far as it will go, thinking I can check up on it every couple of minutes until it is done, and turn it on again. Then, I go to watch TV and, as you can imagine, pretty much forget about the roll, until after a while I notice a burning smell and smoke coming out of the kitchen. I turn off the microwave, open it — more smoke — open the garden door, usher the dogs and cat outside because I think they shouldn’t be in a room that is full of smoke, and go upstairs to tell my parents. They are both still sound asleep. As my mom is sick, I try and wake up my dad.)

Me: *softly* “Dad?”

Dad: *snores*

Me: *louder* “Dad.”

Dad: *grumbles*

Me: *shaking his shoulder* “Daaad.”

Dad: *grumpily* “What?”

Me: “The kitchen’s full of smoke.”

Dad: “WHAT?!”

(You can bet he flew out of bed after hearing that. Thankfully, my well-intentioned mishap caused no permanent damage, and my parents were even able to laugh about it… after the microwave was cleaned out.)