Thursday, January 17, 2008

Mayde Mayde Mayde…Kitchen 7114 sinking!!!



MAYDE MAYDE MAYDE….
THIS IS KITCHEN 7114…SINKING
ESTIMATE 3 INCHES OF WATER INSIDE COMPARTMENT 4 – KITCHEN
EMERGENCY EVACUATION AND PUMPS REQUIRED
MAYDE MAYDE MAYDE OVER…..

would have been the best way to describe the scene!

It all started as a part of shaking off my morning laziness. On a chilly January morning, early at 6:15 AM, I woke up and switched off my alarm. Usually alarm is snoozed at least three times before I get out of my bed. But that particular day, something urged me to be the early bird! My daily routine was broken that day as I started review of reports by morning itself, which I usually do at office. The last late night movie made me cut shot my dinner to a single glass of milk. It started showing its effect as I grew really hungry in early morning itself.
The idea of breakfast crept in, which is not a usual thing for me! I saw my last day’s lunch box was still on the table. When I entered kitchen, I could see a heap of soiled dinner plates in my sink. I added my lunch box to the heap and went on looking for breakfast options.

Options!
1. An apple, work involved: shave the wax out of apple skin, wash it properly, cut it and eat. (I cannot munch into an apple for obvious reasons. Refer
here for details)
2. Bread toast / butter / jam: Work involved- Have to microwave the freeze bread, then toast it /apply jam / butter
3. Corn flakes: Pour in cornflakes and milk, add sugar and microwave it.

The first two options consisted of very tedious steps. The third one sounded most appealing as less work involved (Guess how lazy I am these days, blame it on US life style ;))

Before turning to the shelf, I opened the sink tap to let some water into my dried lunch box. Went ahead with cornflakes and milk! Kept it inside the microwave and waited until I hear the customary beeps. The hot milk with cornflakes really amused me as I was really hungry. Grabbed the vase with 'milk n cornflakes' and started eating. It took 8 minutes for me to complete as my eyes went on reading the heroics of Viru on the third test match in Perth on ‘cricinfo’. By the time I finished my breakfast and headed back to the kitchen, I felt some thing was wrong. The moment I stepped into the kitchen, from the hall, my feeling of something wrong changed to experiencing something wrong!

My Kitchen was flooded with at least 3 inches of water over the wooden floor. The water was icy cold and it was in search of its way to the carpet. If I don’t act fast, the whole house will be flooded soon. Having a wet carpet while the outside temperature is below 0 degree celcius is the worst thing one can imagine of!

Action plan:

1. First and fore most, close the tap over sink.
2. Check if any of the dangling electric wires in the kitchen is in water, if found, take them to a dry place
3. Move the dust bin out of flood, or it will end up in a filthy dirty water flood.

Rescue operation:
1. Stop the onward journey of water to the dry carpeted hall!
2. Attack the stalled water with turkey towels and paper towels.
3. Make sure that the water in sink is drained.
4. Make enough space in the sink in between the heap of dishes for water to drain out!

I acted up on the above steps in an organized way (I mean to say frantically) to dry my kitchen and save it from sinking. It took me almost 25 minutes of hard work (Spread out the towel on water over the floor, get it to the sink, dry it, repeat the same for about 50 to 60 times).Then the ‘paper towel’ part, to make sure that the wooden floor is dried out. Heater in the room was of great help.

Root cause analysis: Why all this happened?

I should have ignored my hunger and slept for another 15 minutes which would have saved all this. It means no break fast!

Lessons learnt:

1. Never keep a tap open and leave the kitchen under any circumstances.
2. When adding any soiled dishes to the sink, make sure that the heap is not organized in such a way that water overflows.
3. Keep enough turkey towel and paper towel in case we have plans to flood our kitchen.

When roomie woke up and came out, he saw a tired looking me gazing at the wooded kitchen floor.

Roomie: Why our kitchen floor is a little sticky today?

Me: I am trying a new technique to keep my morning busy and kitchen clean.

Roomie: Hmmm… the floor is looking clean but what about the rest ?

Me: Will try tomorrow :)

Roomie: Good, keep up the good work!

Me: DON’T mention it!!!

Next time if you are going out of your routine to try some new things like having breakfast or a morning jog, be careful. 100 odd things can go wrong :)
But still I luv to have breakfast on a chilly morning, worth its effort!

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