My Burnt Oven

As I was juggling to take care of my 2 kids on a Saturday, I was very grateful that they requested the French bread pepperoni pizza for lunch. Preparing it only took a few simple steps: heat up the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, unwrap the individually packed French bread pizzas, put them on a baking sheet, then insert into the oven for 20 min.

While the oven was heating up, my nose caught this strong odor of burned food. It was far beyond recognition of what the original food was. I didn’t think too much of it; my focus was to put the pizzas in once the oven was ready.

I heard the “beep”, signaling the oven’s temperature was perfect. I rushed to open the oven door. As I was pulling the door handle down, a big poof of white smoke gushed out, obscured my vision, teared up my eyes and initiated a choking sensation. Before I had time to recover from all that, the smoke detector, which was about 6 feet away from me, started to go off. It was a constant and repetitive loud beeping noise. It was ruthless. It was ringing in my ear. My son rushed into the kitchen, looking confused.

My initial thought was that I had to stop the smoke alarm from sounding off any longer. The most logical thing to do, I thought, was to turn off or disconnect the smoke detector. So I quickly grabbed a chair, stepped on it, and reached for the smoke detector which was staring at me from the ceiling. I removed it from the ceiling, and the smoke detector silenced on my hand. “Whew!” I thought. I quickly opened my back door and some windows relatively far from the oven.

Before I could let out a sigh of relief, a louder and more powerful alarm was going off – who knew I had another smoke detector on the 2^nd floor, on a vaulted ceiling, hung so high up that it was like in a no man’s land? There was no way I could reach that one. Why did I choose to change my sky lights to inoperable fixtures of glass?

The alarm was more fierce than ever. Then my son alerted me, “The cops are here.” Oh yes, my smoke detectors were connected to the alarm system which would alert our local police. I opened my front door and saw this police officer walking toward my house. He must have been a foot taller than me, or at least that was what I thought. I reassured him that it wasn’t a real fire, it was only something burnt in the oven that created all the smoke.

The police officer walked into the kitchen, peeked inside the oven and asked me if I used the “self-clean” feature of the oven. I knew this function existed, but I never used it, and did not think I had to use it – until that second. He then turned around to a window 3 steps from the oven. He said that the only way the smoke detector alarm would turn off (properly) was to get rid of the smoke. He opened up that oversized window, the closest window from the oven. Shortly after that, there was silence. No more alarm crying away. He then walked out of my house and drove away.

I was relieved to have my peace and quietness back. It should have been obvious to open up that closest window first, but that thought didn’t even cross my radar. While you are deep in a situation, you may be partially blinded. The easiest solution may be right in front of your eyes but you don’t see it. Sometimes it takes an outsider to guide you or to point it out, even though you have that answer all along.

Mr. Police Officer, thank you for being my guide that day. We all will be in situations where we don’t find the best solution to the problem. We may be distracted by other options. Seeking guidance or having a mentor to reveal where the door is to your path (or in my case, window) keeps us on the path we choose to be on. I believe we will meet many guides and mentors along our way of living in alignment with our hopes and dreams.