Hot Stones
So, here’s something that probably will sound a little weird to you, and I am a little embarrassed to admit to anyone but since I put out a lot of embarrassing information about myself I will share anyway….
I LOVE to give massages (to people in my family). I am pretty good at it and love it so much that a few years ago I thought I wanted to be a massage therapist. We actually looked into a school near our house. We got an application to apply and were all set to take a tour. Once we looked a little bit deeper I got discouraged. Even though I am good at what I do, it’s technically a science. You really have to know what you’re doing. The biology/science parts were just too hard and while I was welcomed to have a teaching assistant with me, we would have to pay for that privately. That right there killed my dreams…
Anyway, that’s not going to stop me from giving massages at home. I even asked for a massage table for this Christmas! I do a whole set up for those that allow me – I have (battery operated) color changing candles, I set my laptop up with some “Asian inspired relaxation music”, hot cloth and the best – hot stones. (My aunt found some at a local craft store.) I use my microwave to get the cloths good and hot as well as for heating up my stones.
This past Columbus Day weekend, my younger sister, Danielle was home on break from college. She is ALWAYS down for a good massage. She didn’t want to bother with any of my fancy schmancy preparations. “Just get to it”, she kept telling me. But, me being me, wanted her to have the “whole experience”. From the time she walked in the door on Friday I kept trying to have someone help me with the heating process. Everyone was busy. “Not now, Amy”, was all that I had been hearing for hours. I had literally been walking around with a cloth and 2 rocks all afternoon. My sister and my mom told me right before dinner I could do the massage. I don’t know what happened but then the massage, once again, got postponed. “Let’s eat dinner first”, my mom told me. We sat down for dinner. It was nice because for the first time since the summer we were all there together. We shared a menu of food that my sister had requested and they were enjoying a bottle of wine as well. It looked like this Friday night would be the beginning of a “normal”, relaxing weekend – the kind my mom had planned in her head.
Not so…
I quickly ate my dinner, anxious to get the hot stones ready. I asked how long to put the stones in the microwave. I also asked what I should put them in. Now, remember, I am nervous to use that damn microwave since the whole mac and cheese incident I had before. You also need to know that I was totally annoying all afternoon (so I have been told). Hot stones, hot stones, that is where my focus was and everyone was just wanting me to get on with it. I tend to get too focused on things. You have to also remember about that bottle of wine they were sharing. So, I leave my family at the table and begin my preparations. My mom yells from the dining room to be sure that I put the stones in for only 1 minute and use the wicker basket. ( She had used that basket a few times for me in my heating process before.) She yelled again, which one to use specifically because we have a few that are definitely made of wire and we all know metal and microwaves do not mix.
So, by now it’s just my mom and older sister sitting at the table chatting. My grandma had started washing some dishes, my other sister was outside smoking and my dad had left to get some materials he would need for the next days job. I put the basket and stones in the microwave and walked out of the kitchen to grab my cloth to wet and heat up next. My grandma starts calling for my mom. She calls her once, twice, by then my mom heard “popping” sounds, like when you use an older dish in the microwave, you know how sometimes things make noise. So by the third time grandma called her with a little more stress in her voice, my mom assumed that the microwave should be stopped and told my grandma – just open it. She didn’t want to take the time to try to explain how to actually stop it. There didn’t seem to be any real problem. I have to tell you that a few days before one of my dogs fell into the (covered) pool. I had to go in after him. That was a panic. Everyone ran and we were all shaking. The next day the other dog falls into the pool! Are you kidding me? Didn’t he see what happened to his “brother”? So, for whatever reason, we thought maybe a dog was too close to the pools edge or something. After all, Danielle was right outside on the deck looking in and grandma didn’t sound that startled. Well, all of a sudden she yelled, “Hurry up, theres a fire in here!”
My mom goes running into the kitchen and once again – a full on fire is in progress in the damn microwave! As she is unplugging it my sister Nicole starts looking through our cabinets for the fire extinguisher, when she can’t find one she runs down the basement stairs to find one she’s sure shes seen down there. Danielle is still outside, too calm. Mom and grandma are yelling at each other, and just like that, Nicoles boyfriend, who happens to be a fireman, shows up at the backdoor. Nicole starts screaming at him to come inside and Danielle is asking him (calmly) if he could help us out. He has no idea that there are flames shooting out of our microwave. Hes like 6’5”, he probably thought my mom needed him to reach something off of a high shelf. He begins to take off his boots, not wanting to get mud on the kitchen floor. We are all yelling at him now to just come in, the hell with your boots! Nicole was screaming, asking him if he takes his boots off at every emergency call he gets. At this point, I too ran into action. I ran into my room thinking they were all going to kill me for nearly setting the house on fire again. But, not only that…thanks to my deletion 22 I really get paranoid. My worries were that the house was going to burn down and when the fire department and news cameras arrived they would ask what had caused the fire. Everyone would know that I was heating up stones to give my sister a massage and I would be mortified forever. It’s funny now, but seriously, that was my biggest worry at the time. That people would think I was a freak.
Once inside, he sees whats going on and asks for a fire extinguisher. Nicole informs him that we don’t have one. But we do of course. My mom goes under the sink and comes out with a brand new extinguisher. Nicole says, “that’s a fire extinguisher? I thought it was a cleaning product!” It was there the whole time and it did kinda look like a bottle of bleach. Who knew? Any way, 2 to 3 squirts and it was done. The house was full of smoke, we were shaking, but it was done.
Once we inspected the basket – the actual cause of the fire, we saw only a WIRE frame of a basket left. The “whicker” was not whicker at all. It was a plastic, looks like whicker piece of crap wrapped around wire – METAL WIRE!
I was crying hysterically and could not calm down. Even when my mother was yelling over me that it was HER fault this time. She is the one who told me to use that EXACT basket.
Wait, what? Through my sobs it slowly sank in. It was HER fault. Oh Thank God!
Now we are in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess of foam the extinguisher left behind and trying to air out the house. Just then my dad shows up. He was oblivious to what had happened in the last 20 minutes. Seriously, this whole thing happened in about 20 minutes. He opened the screen door and said “what happened?”
Everyone just laughed. Who would even believe it? There is truly never a dull moment. He looked at the microwave. He looked at us and walked away.
The next 30 minutes were spent yelling at my mom for telling me to use a basket.
As you probably guessed, I think I will just be heating things up with really hot water for awhile. It will take me a long time to get over my fear of that thing again. If you are wondering, my sister did get her hot stone massage that night. We all needed a little something something after that episode…
Welcome to Amy’s World….
