S is for Sizzle

S is also for Sunday. And Soaked. And Suck.

And SON-OF-A-BITCH!!!

I was having the best weekend!

Friday, I had a lovely picnic in the library park with my best friend, her toddler and about 30 yellow jackets. (If you know me at all, you know I'm terrified of flying, stinging things). Stinging assholes not withstanding, we had a great time!

Saturday evening, Dave and I went to have dinner with a couple we really like to hang out with. They served brisket and some really divine sides! We drank and hung out in the hot tub and had a blast!

My whole plan for Sunday was to get some yarn dying (special for a swap), sit on my ass and knit and watch movies all day. Maybe get real ambitious and take a nap.

I have this really thick stainless steel pot I use on the stove for dying. I usually put the yarn in with the dye and get it cooking then set it outside to cool. This time I was trying a different technique, so I had the dye cooking and the yarn soaking in a bucket outside, waiting for the hot dye bath.

Thankfully, the pot had no yarn in it.

Thankfully, Dave and I were actually watching TV downstairs; usually we are upstairs, Dave on his computer playing poker, me watching TV in our room, knitting. The kids were in their room playing on their computer and Dave and I were chillin' downstairs, flipping aimlessly through the channels.

Then I hear some water on the stove start to sputter. I looked at Dave puzzled. There was no WAY that water could be boiling over! It's got blue dye in it, so I made sure it wasn't anywhere near the top of the pot. It wasn't even halfway and that pot is about 2 feet deep. I started to get up off the couch when we hear this electric sizzle, then a loud pop, and see the stove arc some fairly amazing electricity off of it!

I rush into the kitchen and see boiling blue-dyed water gushing all over the place. I turn off the stove and look around the pot to see where (and, for fuck's sake HOW) it's boiling over. That's when I realize it's NOT boiling over. There's a hole in the bottom of the pot.

Dave was a champ. I was an idiot.

See, I'm also terrified of electricity. When I was a kid, my big brother used to make me touch the hot wire in the front pasture to see if it was on. If I didn't do it, he'd punch me. Half the time, I could SEE into the garage and see the little green light meaning it was on, but I still had to touch it.

So, Dave is hollering at me to get something to poor it into. I stand there, dancing from foot to foot. He grabs the stockpot we used the night before to cook corn in, dumps that water into the sink and tells me to get the gushing pot off the stove and let it drain into the stockpot. I say, "It's too hot!!" So he hands me the stockpot and, very calmly, gets.... you know... hot pads, lifts off the gushing pot and holds it over the stockpot in my hands. We stand that way until the stockpot is almost full, then we look over at the sink and realize we could've used the stockpot to transfer the leaking pot to the sink and dump it there! Duh.

(So Dave's been laughing at me this whole time and how I'm not good in crisis and I remind him of who always takes care of D2 when he pukes.)

My lazy Sunday turned into a blue Sunday. I spent the WHOLE damn day cleaning blue dye from my pale kitchen. My feet, my hands, splotches on my legs, and my attitude were (are) all blue.

Dave lifted the top of the stove (who knew you could do that?) and there's these two wells under there, apparently for just such an occasion. I made him turn off the breakers to the kitchen. The stove was turned off, but the little light by the dials - the light that tells you the burner is on - wouldn't turn off.

These under-stove-top wells are FULL of hot, blue water. We look at each other. We look at the 3 feet of white linoleum between the stove and the sink. We look at each other and start laughing. I say, "Turkey baster?" and he says, "We're not trying to impregnate it!" and we start laughing harder. I get the turkey baster and start draining first well. We realize this will take an Ice Age. Dave asks if we have a giant sponge anywhere and I say that we don't. He trots off to the garage to double check and I can hear him laughing again. He comes in with our wet/dry shop-vac. Oh yeah.... we own one of those! We had to go online to see how to use it as a wet vac but get the blue water sucked up pretty neatly!

Here's the burner that arced...

See the hole towards the bottom end (beginning?) of the coil?

Here's the Giant Stainless Steel Pot with my thumb for comparison to see the thickness of said pot,

Here's my thumb next to the hole the stove blew into it....

On the plus side, I've discovered the only thing that can remove blue dye from Formica countertops is Formula 409. I used ammonia on Sunday and that got most of it off the enamel of the stove and the linoleum of the floor, but didn't remove any of the dye from the countertops.

On Monday, I tried using bleach soaked rags on the counters with very little results. Today, I used the 409 - blue's all gone! Now I just have to find something other then Time to get it off my skin.

On the only speck of bright side... I had enough dye in the smaller stockpot to actually dye the damn yarn.

Still blue-handed, Ruth!