MY FOURTH OF JULY EXPLOSION

It's common, documented knowledge that The Flaming Bore lacks cooking skill and is more or less banished from our kitchen...except to sweep the floor and wash an occasional dish. You'd think, however, that I could at least heat up a hotdog in the microwave correctly. But.....nooooooo. Here's yesterday's scenario:

Put hotdog on paper towel, set microwave for 40 seconds, go back to computer to answer email, forget about hotdog.

Big Bore (watching TV): "Are you cooking something?"

Flaming Bore: "Just heating up a hotdog in the microwave. I'll get it pretty soon."

BB: "What'd you set the timer on?"

FB: "Forty seconds. It's off by now."

BB: "Well, you'd better go check because it's still running and it smells like a barbecue accident coming from the kitchen."

So I dashed to the microwave....which was STILL running. I'd set the damned thing for 4 minutes instead of 40 seconds. Ooops! The Ball Park Frank had been smacked totally out of the stadium, exploded, and morphed into something like beef jerky a la gross. I wasn't going to try gnawing on it, of course, but Big Bore thought I should throw it to the cats.

"No way!" I said, horrified. "I don't want to risk killing them!" I deposited the maimed meat in the trash bin outside and cleaned up the microwave.

My 4th of July feast ended up being a bowl of Wheat Chex with milk. No cooking required and oh, so much safer.