Where there's smoke, there's a good chance that my son is fixing oatmeal

I hate my alarm clock. Loud, shrill noises first thing in the morning in general annoy me, and I tend to try my best to ignore them. That's why my actions this morning were not all that surprising to me.

My alarm started going off early this morning, and as usual, I was doing my best to pretend I couldn't hear it. Every so often I would pound at it with my fist, and it would quiet down for awhile. It's a game we play every morning that I have to be at work. It normally results in my oversleeping and having to rush around like a madman to make it into work on time, or occasionally, a few minutes late.

The odd thing about this particular morning was after playing a few rounds of snooze-button-wack-a-mole, the shrill bleeping of the clock was joined by a somewhat softer, gentler bleeping, coming from downstairs. This new bleeping wasn't nearly as annoying as the alarm clock though, so I quickly decided I could probably just ignore it, as it wouldn't be that much of an impediment to my sleep. That's when my wife chimed in.

"Is that the fire alarm?"

"Yeah." I said, before rolling over to continue attempting to get back to sleep. I like to think of myself as a man of action, not just words.

"Do you think you should check to see why it's going off?" She continued, obviously not taking the hint that sometimes a comfy pillow trumps knowing definitively whether or not your house is burning down.

"Oh, ok." I said, and got out of bed.

About this time I began to realize that maybe the fire alarm going off was a cause for concern. Let's just say I'm not the brightest cookie in the jar first thing in the morning.

I hurry downstairs and hear my son start calling out for me or his mother. Smoke is billowing across the living room, but I notice no open flames there, a good sign to be sure. I continue on to the kitchen and behold, there on the stove top a cozy little blaze is burning away.

For awhile I watch it burn while my brain processes the possibility that this does not belong. It's a rather complicated thought process for this early in the morning, after all, it's a fire in the kitchen. Isn't the kitchen supposed to have fire? I mean, it is where we cook our food.

Eventually reason wins out and I pour a glass of water. Well, actually before I pour the water I try blowing on the fire for awhile. Yeah, I'm smart. Mensa member and whatnot. So, surprise, feeding a fire extra amounts of one of its key ingredients doesn't work, so that's when I pour a glass of water and dump it on the stove. Fire out, crisis resolved by the lightning quick response of a former member of a Naval firefighting team. Or something like that.

Apparently, what had happened was this. My son woke up early and decided to make himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. He turned the burner on under our teapot to heat up some water. Unfortunately, an oven mit was still on the handle of the tea pot, and at some point the mit slipped down onto the gas burner and ignited. How any kids survive past the age of 5 is all I can wonder...

After it was all over I dedicated the Talking Heads song "Burning down the house" to my son, tapping him on the shoulder every time they got to the part in the song where they sing "Burning down the house." We laughed and laughed, or at least I laughed while he smiled sheepishly, but the point is a good time was had by all. I think it's important to make it fun for kids when they all but burn your house down. It encourages them to try harder next time.