QotD: Kitchen Impossible

What was your worst cooking experience?
-- Vox Question of the Day

First, I was twelve. I was babysitting my brothers, who were eight and four. I was also grounded from the television. I planned on making soup - and I guess sandwiches, but I never got that far. The soup was a little pouch of condensed powder and fake noodles, the kind you pour in boiling water. So the stage is set: twelve years old, hot stove, watching TV because I'm not supposed to be... and I turned on the wrong burner. There was a plastic Tupperware pitcher (to measure that water) sitting on that fateful burner. If I'd been in the kitchen when the chaos began, the story would have ended differently.

The smoke alarm went off. I dashed in the kitchen to see flames - big flames. In my panic, I grabbed a chair, climbed up and removed the battery from the smoke alarm. Then I grabbed my four-year-old brother and ran over to the neighbor's house. I jabbered out my panic to Mr.C. "OMG the kitchen's on fire! Flames! OMG, what do I do?" He told me to stay outside with the four-year-old, and he went inside. He found the fire extinguisher, and put out the flames.

At this point, my eight-year-old brother wandered out of his bedroom to see what was going on.

My punishment? After Mom and Dad hugged me and told me they were glad I was ok, I had to scrape all the burned plastic off the stove. It had dribbled down inside the stove top in a few places, so it was quite the chore.

My then-eight-year-old brother never forgave me for leaving him alone in a burning house - even if the flames were limited to the stove top.