The story of the burnt grapefruit

Yesterday was supposed to look like this:

Work for a few hours.

Lunch.

Work another hour or so.

Snack. Run. Shower. Work.

Instead, my day went a little like this:

Head to the coffee shop near downtown around 8am. At this point, we’re actually ahead of schedule.

Get off the interstate because rush hour traffic is nuts and I know back roads that will get me there much faster.

Get stopped by a train. For 10 minutes.

After coffee head home for a little more work, lunch, and work.

Toss a grapefruit in the oven to broil (done like this — it’s delish).

Walk to the backyard and lock myself out.

Freak out about broiling grapefruit now left unattended. It’s only supposed to be in the oven for 5 minutes.

Remember there is a credit card in my pocket and attempt to break in to 2 different doors.

Ruin credit card.

See neighbor working outside and approach him for help. He’s hard of hearing and thinks I’m asking him to move his truck.

After clarification he hands me his flip phone. No internet and I don’t memorize numbers anymore.

Call mom (because that number hasn’t changed since high school) and have her lookup landlord’s info.

Neighbor assures me he can break in with a credit card — because he’s seen it done before.

Walk back to my place and hear the smoke detector going off. Can’t see any smoke inside, but blood pressure is definitely rising.

Neighbor further destroys credit card.

Now convinced that the grapefruit is going to burn the house down.

Call fire department.

Quickly, three lovely men arrive and do little to hold back their giggles. One is a fan of those tremendous Kentucky Wildcats.

We bond.

They can’t see smoke or smell anything so they spend 15 minutes discussing the best way to get in doing the least amount of damage.

A small window pane is broken and the grapefruit is freed from the oven.

It’s crispy.

Can’t go for run or shower because the window man and landlord are in and out.

Hours later, toss a frozen pizza in the oven (because I had no energy to put a real meal together).

7 minutes later, smoke detecter does it’s thing. Again. It’s feeling extra sensitive because there is no smoke to be had. To be safe, I remove the pizza from the oven.

Have cold pizza for dinner.

The end.