So I tried something I read on the internet and nearly set my house on fire last night

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Wait! I’m not even talking about diagnosing terminal illnesses, magical weight-loss tips, conspiracy theories or anything that aims to debunk established scientific truths. We already know that stuff is crazy.

I’m talking about those lists of helpful tips you see everywhere: 18 Ways To Save Time In the Kitchen; 23 Easy Hacks to Change Your Life; or, my favourite, 48 Tricks Every Parent Should Know. And I should know better! I mean, I already wrote 13 Parenting Tips That Can Bite Me  and the so-called useful advice that has come out since then has been crying out for a sequel. Have you seen the baby sleeper with the built-in mop?! Yes, let’s clothe our infants in mops to maximize the amount of dust and dirt that will cling to them when they crawl across the floor. That’s brilliant.

I don’t even know why I clicked on 29 Everyday Tips That Will Blow Your Mind, or whatever it was. Okay, fine. I know exactly why. I was procrastinating. I had to write a blog post, the kids’ bedtime has spiraled out of any reasonable range. I was feeling tired and lazy and grasping at any innocent distraction that wouldn’t require me to use my brain. Ding, ding, ding! I skimmed the list, dismissed most of the harebrained hacks out of hand, but lingered on a picture of a toaster sitting on its side. Make grilled cheese by placing a toaster on its side, the caption said.

*Cough*

I continued to waste time online and then decided to go into the kitchen for a cup of tea and a snack before I finally sat down to write a blog post. That’s when I decided, hey, what the heck! Let’s try that toasted cheese thing I saw online. What could go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong?

I put a couple thin slices of cheese on a piece of bread, turned the toaster on it’s side and slid the bread into one slot, cheese side up.

I started smelling smoke pretty much right away. But when I looked into the toaster, I could see that the bread and cheese were sitting nicely in their slot, not touching or dripping onto the heating elements. It was just some old crumbs smoking up a little. It happens. I continued to make my tea and load the dishwasher when I noticed the smoke was starting to billow out thick and black. Um.

Holy shit. My toaster was on fire! There were flames dancing around the bottom of the toaster and licking the sides. It turns out that old toaster crumbs will, in fact, catch fire, if you turn your toaster on it’s side to melt cheese on toast like some stupid website told you to. I pulled out my toast and turned the toaster upright, not knowing quite what to do. I unplugged it and briefly considered running it under the tap or just running outside into the night air screaming fire.

Instead, I placed a pot lid over the toaster slots and managed to smother the fire. I opened the back door to air out the house and the verdict’s still out on whether the toaster itself will pull through. My poor cheesy toast, though, was half blackened on the bottom.

So I did what any person who was raised by my mother would do. I scraped off the burnt part and ate it anyway. It was alright.

Well, at least I have a story to tell now, I thought.

Then the entire block went dark and stayed dark. So I went to bed.