"Call 911"

"Call 911", I screamed at my father-in-law as I rushed into my house in attempts to find the source of the dense charcoal haze. Just seconds later I emerged from the house with a large skillet of charcoal chicken stir fry. How it happened will always haunt me.
It wasn't a crazy busy day. I had almost finished schooling the kids when I had to go out and "put out a fire" at the bookstore. Upon my return home, I was a little embarrassed to find that my mother-in-law had totally cleaned my laundry room, which was a COMPLETE disaster area. I had intended on giving it a good cleaning that night while everyone was asleep. I might also have
been a little psyched-out by her reorganizing my pantry items with all the labels facing out and in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. But tonight would be the night that I would show off MY skills. I had just finished cooking up an Asian masterpiece, of which we would all soon be partakers... right after a quick trip to our store.
I drove away from the house feeling confident that THIS trip I would show my mother-law that I could successfully juggle the many hats that I had come to wear since having married her son 17 years ago. I was sure that the use of my time management skills, which my husband would like me to employ more often than JUST when his parent are around, would surely pay off. Buddy would NOT have to take us out to dinner, and I would avoid having to hear my mother-in-law remind me about how much money we would save if we didn't eat out so much...yada, yada, yada. ( I write this in love and fun. She reads my blog.) Back to my confidence...today I would prove myself a time-management success...HA!
I showed them our labor of love (the bookstore/coffee shop), we drank lattes and shut down the shop. Stir fried Chicken, here we come...
As I approached the door to my house, I could hear the alarms. I was bewildered by the thick black smoke. Not seeing flames I rushed in to find the source...there sat my Asian masterpiece still cooking!
We didn't eat out that night. We had ham sandwiches. I'm sure that there is some lesson to be learned, although I still don't know what it is! Pray for me though, my house smells like a huge bag of charcoal.