But I was jolted from the routine bathroom cleaning when I suddenly whiffed something burning. An overdose of adrenaline immediately flooded my body. I've been afraid of a fire in this house since the day we moved in. "Fire escape" was as much a priority in the blueprints of this house as electrical wiring. All four kids were upstairs! I rushed around the circle of our first floor and didn't spy any fire or smoke so I flew up the stairs and called to the girls as I glanced in each room, "Girls! Come downstairs right now. Mommy smells something burning."
They obeyed immediately, and with them safely lined up by the back door I rushed to the basement. Not the dryer. Not the furnace. Not the wiring overhead. Where was that smell coming from? Whenever I found one level of the house clear I feared that fire was breaking out in the level I wasn't on. I rushed back up to find the kids still waiting, wide-eyed at the back door. The first floor was filled with the stench now. It smelled like a rubber spatula I had once left on a stove burner and melted. I took a closer look now at the kitchen and thought it must be coming from something there. Not the stove top, not the oven, not the refrigerator, not the microwave, not the coffee maker, but I went around unplugging things just to be sure.
I put coats and shoes on the kids and marched them around the house to see if we could see any smoke coming from outside. Back inside the smell was stronger than ever. At a loss, I called my dad (with the kids still lined up at the back door). He had me pull fuses, check the furnace fan belt, and look more closely at wiring. The smell was still growing. Finally we decided I should just leave the house and call the landlady. Just as I was agreeing to this I took one last trip around the kitchen, sniffing with my stench-filled nose. And suddenly I felt very silly.
Sitting innocently in the very corner of my kitchen counter was the breadmaker that I had completely forgotten I had turned on three hours earlier. 
Light, wispy, stinky smoke was pouring from the vents, but quickly dissapearing into the surrounding air. The new mix had made a wonderful loaf, just a little too big for my pan, and the batter had dripped down the sides and was scorching on the heating element below. In my adrenaline-fogged mind I thought I had checked every appliance that could possibly produce heat, but had forgotten the breadmaker that has simply become a part of the counter to me.
Light, wispy, stinky smoke was pouring from the vents, but quickly dissapearing into the surrounding air. The new mix had made a wonderful loaf, just a little too big for my pan, and the batter had dripped down the sides and was scorching on the heating element below. In my adrenaline-fogged mind I thought I had checked every appliance that could possibly produce heat, but had forgotten the breadmaker that has simply become a part of the counter to me."You know, Mommy," Naomi added, "there was one more good thing that came out of all this."
"Oh really, honey, what's that?" I asked.
"Well, Hannah and I were just fighting over who would do a puzzle when you came up," she explained, "and you made us forget to fight."
It does put things in perspective, doesn't it?
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