The Undiscovered Country

I Are Not So Smart Sometimes

I'm not into giving bullet-point advice, because life is often too complex to narrow certain solutions down to a list that, "If you go through these five steps, you will be rich within six months!" Etc., etc.

That said, I do believe a person should do three things each day:

1. Learn something new.
2. Do at least one good deed.
3. Do something silly, and make sure other people know about it.

Three is important, because I think we take ourselves too seriously. We need to laugh at ourselves at times, because it keeps us humble.

At 8:07am this morning, I did a doozy of a silly (and actually qualifies as a stupid). I put a breakfast sandwich in the microwave, and when I returned, I noticed the microwave was still running. I thought someone had removed my sandwich and was cooking their own, but after looking around the kitchen, I couldn't find my sandwich anywhere.

Then I smelled it.

Crap.

I opened the microwave and out billowed a cloud of smoke, and the originally white paper towel wrapped around the sandwich turned a not-so-lovely brown. I threw the burning hot coal of a sandwich into the sink and turned on the cold water. It sizzled and steam and more smoke filled the sink. Which soon filled the kitchen.

Either the smoke and smell wafted throughout the building, or it has permanently permeated into my skin and nostrils. Now almost 40 minutes later, I can still smell my burnt-to-a-crisp breakfast sandwich.

Turns out, I had accidentally set the microwave to ten minutes instead of one. If I hadn't gone back into the kitchen after six minutes, I might have set the microwave on fire. Good thing I caught it when I did, because I wouldn't want to tell my boss how I burnt down his building.

So that's my silly act of the day, although it might also qualify for the stupid act of the week, month, even year.