Stella hates the stove. When it’s in use, she lies on the kitchen floor watching us carefully like she’s expecting the oven door to open up and swallow us whole. She won’t eat, she won’t drink, she won’t let the person cooking out of her sight. And even when the stove is not in use, if she has to walk past it, sometimes she’ll do the same quick little scurry run we all did as kids when we didn’t want the monsters under our bed to grab our ankles.
She’s never been hurt by our stove, there’s never been an incident in the time we’ve had her, but on the list of Stella’s nemeses, the stove is just below cardboard boxes, and above that weird spot on the floor that gets sunny sometimes if the blinds are open just so. It’s a fabulous excuse to not cook.
Yesterday, I had to run errands. When I came home Stella was wound up, jumping around, doing her grumbly howl thing at me like she had stories to tell.
J said he’d put some tater tots in the oven and while he was waiting for them to cook, he got on the treadmill. While he was jogging, the oven smoked just enough to make the smoke detector beep once (the smoke detector is a little too close to the stove). It was just a tiny little blip and then it stopped.
Stella tore into the room, jumped on the treadmill with J, and tried to walk between his legs, like he was base and that automatically made her safe. Of course then Argo was all “Hey, guys! Why is everyone on the treadmill without me?” and my family turned into a circus act.
I missed the whole thing.
But I did get licorice jellybeans, so there’s that.
How funny!
And nobody fell off! I’m so impressed!
I remember the first time the smoke alarm in an apartment we used to rent went off. That thing didn’t beep- it sounded like someone had suspended a Harley from the ceiling and started it! Kansas went flying into the hallway, and stared up at it with this “WHAT THE EFF IS THAT It’s ok, Mom! I got it! LEMME AT IT!” look on her face.
Leo hates smoke alarms. Another place we rented had one too close to the stove, and it used to beep all the dang time. Then you’d find 80lb Leo cowering behind the furniture in the room furthest away from the culprit.
I don’t think Airlie has encountered a smoke alarm yet. Oh, great. They say we should conduct practice fire drills for our pets, so the noise won’t freak them out quite so much during the real thing.
I’m sorry you missed it too! Because I would have loved to see a picture of that.