Ooooh, Mom, You Stink!

When I picked Snapper up from school today, she climbed up next to the front seat to kiss me. She quickly pulled away and said in a disgusted voice, "Oooooh, Mom, you stink! What is that smell?" Under any other circumstances, I would have been offended. But today, I knew exactly what the problem was.

This morning, Matt was in the garage working, I was working on the computer upstairs, and Pepper was...let's see, where was Pepper? Last I saw him, he was playing with Legos in his room. Last Matt saw him, he was eating a snack at the kitchen table. He was eating popcorn, leftovers from my American Idol snack last night. He was eating cold, stale popcorn out of my stainless steel popcorn bowl.

From my station at the computer upstairs, I could hear popcorn popping, a bit louder than usual. Matt likes to make popcorn, so I wasn't surprised or even curious about the sounds. I knew he was making popcorn when I could smell it burning. I figured he stepped out into the garage for a minute and forgot the popcorn on the stove. Then he called up the stairs to me, and told me to come down right away. As I left the office, I was overwhelmed by the choking burned popcorn smoke. Eager to escape the smell, I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, only to find that the smoke was thicker downstairs. I asked Matt how he had burned the popcorn. He didn't say anything, simply shook his head and pointed at the microwave.

There, smoldering in the microwave, was my stainless steel bowl of cold, stale popcorn, now charred and sending out billows of black smoke. Cowering in the corner of the kitchen was a very guilty 3-year-old boy. I asked him if he had put the popcorn in the microwave. To his credit, he told me the truth. It was cold, so he wanted to heat it up. Matt and I got down on our knees beside him and told him the danger of using the microwave without Mommy and Daddy there. He could have burned the house down! Needless to say, today I learned how to use the locking feature of my microwave.

All day today, the burned popcorn stench has filled my house. (How thankful I am that we are not dealing with showing the house anymore!)We opened all the windows, even though it was windy and pouring rain. We ran fans. We boiled vinegar water and steamed the house. We burned several candles and sprayed Febreeze throughout the house. It helped some, but the house still stinks.

And when Snapper hugged me, she was treated to a Mommy whose clothes, hair, and skin had absorbed l'eau de popcorn noir. Ooooh Mom, you stink!