On Monday, April 28, 2014 1:03:43 AM UTC-7, The Daring Dufas wrote:
Talk about not paying close attention. I was heating some sausage in our
smallest microwave and unlike some folks I know, I will adjust the power
level to keep something from splattering all over the inside of the
microwave oven. I set the control for 7 minutes at 40% power, or so I
thought. I was concentrating on some Email when I heard an odd noise
from the kitchen. The microwave was full of smoke and the sausage burned
to a crisp. It turns out that I had inadvertently hit an extra zero when
setting the time and it was 70 minutes instead of 7 minutes. Because I
had set the power level to 40%, there was no back draft and flames when
I opened the frigging oven but there was a lot of smoke. I can still
smell Polish Kielbasa throughout the house after 3 days from the time of
blastoff. The lesson I learned was to pay better attention to those
mundane tasks I take on every day. o_O

I have taken to setting the stove timer on such tasks as my attention span is somewhere south of zero. Filling a pot with water? Set timer, Put pot on stove to boil? Set timer, etc.

Harry K