Dinner By Fire

 

‘Monday Night Football! Damn, this is a fine American invention,’ thought the young bachelor. Kick off was in 15 minutes and he’d be watching, regardless of who was playing, but tonight in style. His favorite meal brewed up by his own nascent culinary skills. Homemade fried chicken.

 

Music blared loudly from the other room, part of his pre-game ritual. Prepare dinner to the ambience of some fine tunes, set the coffee table in front of the TV. If the meal preparation edged too close to game time, he wanted the dining area ready in case he had to hustle in last minute.

 

He was of drinking age and basked in feeling adultish. Tonight that basking took the form of a beer while cooking. And that was all fine, but with meal prep encroaching toward kickoff he turned up the flame on the burner, that’s when things went askew. The chicken was frying well, two tasty seasoned and breaded breasts in the pan. The oil level was high, but not too high for the modest burner that had previously been in play. But turning it up higher was a gutsy move. It was, in fact, the wrong move. The bump up for the gas burner gave the flames just enough gusto to come up over the brim of the pan.

 

“Oh shit,” he said surprisingly calmly given the circumstances. “Better bump that back down,” as he finished his beer and placed the empty on the kitchen counter, but too late. That five-second delay to put down the bottle and step over to the stove from the kitchen sink would yield tragic results. Flames from the burner sluiced up over the pan’s brim and set his delicious meal entirely ablaze!

 

To properly fry chicken it must be done in a two fingers-deep pool of fuel, boiling oil. This also equates to a generous fire fuel load for a kitchen fire. Flames were instantly as tall as the ceiling.

 

He turned off the burner and grabbed the handle of the pan. The guy felt momentarily like a caveman thinking, ‘I’ve made fire, what the hell do I do with it now?’ He had essentially trapped himself. He couldn’t simply put it down as the fire would easily spread. He also couldn’t just continue holding it because the flame was brushing as high as the ceiling. The smoke detector was blaring by now adding to the chaos. The immediate concern, though, was the boiling oil that was popping out of the pan in every direction, including his arms and chest.

 

He was a smart guy. He knew water would extinguish most fires but not a grease fire. Water and oil do not mix. Meanwhile, the fire was hot and far too close for comfort. Hell, that fire was at exactly arm’s distance. He was no coward, no way was he giving up his meal just because of the fire. But he was yelling at the top of his lungs.

 

“Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Fire!”

 

He turned his head sideways away from the fire because it was sending scalding salvos of flesh-scarring burning oil in all directions. His arms and chest were taking a terrible beating from the spattering oil.

 

Cannot dump this fireball into the sink. The pan’s lid! He moved to the right to retrieve it and practically dropped it on the pan. Fire, thankfully, extinguished.

 

Red marks riddled his bare arms from the boiling oil. His t-shirt was seared through in several spots that had been hit with burning oil. He would later find his chest to be amply scarred from this episode.

 

Feeling beaten, but he would not relinquish himself to defeat. He got a chair, moved it to the smoke detector, removed it and pulled out the battery. He turned the music off and TV’s volume up. Just in time for Monday Night Football.

 

The national anthem concluded, the crowd’s applause robustly underway. Kickoff was near. He fixed his plate with well-done chicken breasts, loaded up the complimentary side dishes, grabbed a few napkins because he was no heathen, also to dab at his flesh wounds, he joined the game.

 

 

[Inspired by a true tale heard in 1990 about a fried chicken dinner that escalated into a fireball. wdk]