2A: Do not rest anything inflammable, such as library books, on the counter next to the stove.
2B: Do not rest anything else, such as plates, on the stove.
2C, the most important part: Do not store enticing goodies, such as cheddar-cheese flavored Pirate's Booty, in the cupboards above the stove.
I violated all these rules this afternoon, the first two "just for a minute" while I started straightening up the kitchen. Hambet did not care to wait for dinner, so he pushed a chair over and began to climb up to retrieve the Pirate's Booty. I saw what he was after and got him down off the counter. What I didn't notice was that in his ascent, he had pushed the library book and some other things onto the stove to get them out of his way. I also didn't notice that at some point he had kicked the burner knob on.
Hambet did notice the little plume of smoke rising from the stove. "What's that?" he asked. I looked up, and sure enough, there was the burner on and the library book catching fire. Turned off the burner, moved the book, moved the plate that was too close to the burner, heard the plate go "crack", sighed, and looked over the book. Part of the dust jacket is totally gone, and part of the front cover is charred. The edges of the pages are also a little singed. We'll head over to the library next week to face the music. At least it's a book I won't mind owning, even with a fire-scarred cover. (It's one of those "Jack Aubrey's Navy" type companion books to the O'Brian series.)
Oh well, it's just a material thing, and a relatively inexpensive thing at that. Thank you, Guardian Angel, for calling our attention to the fire before it got big. I also think I might start removing the knobs from the stove and storing them separately until this latest wave of climbing is over.
(By the way, Part 1, "keep an eye on your pot full of olive oil," was here. Do not miss the catechesis on fire extinguishers from our dear commenter Mr Franklin Jennings.)
