You might not think that ‘stupid’ can have a smell, let me assure you, it can.
I was cooking dinner this evening and two things happened. The first is this semi-yummy meal…
Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.
It is Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, no name mixed veggies, 9 frozen pre-cooked shrimp all mixed up with Classico Alfredo & Sun dried Tomato pasta sauce. I rate it a semi-yummy because I prefer a higher sauce-to-pasta ratio so to me it was a bit bland. I cooked 85 grams (1 cup) of pasta because the box said that is a serving, ummm, yeah, way too much! Next time I will half the amount I cook and that should be plenty, bonus is that I can keep the same amount of sauce (1/4 cup) and that should be a much better sauce-to-pasta ratio for me. 🙂
But really, the meal is not the most important thing that occurred during the cooking of dinner. This also happened…
How lovely, melted plastic!
Something you should know about my kitchen, I have almost no counter space. I don’t mean I have a normal sized counter and it is covered with stuff, I mean to the left of the sink I have a space wide enough to have two cups side-by-side (so, tiny space!) and to the right of the sink I have just enough space to hold a dish drainer…is that what it’s called? I mean the thing you put your just washed dishes in to so they can air dry. And that is it. That is all my counter space.
This means a lot of food prep happens on top of the stove because there is nowhere else to do it.
Soooo, this evening I have water in a pot coming to a boil on one front element, on a back element I have a pan heating up to eventually cook the shrimp in and on the other front element I have my kitchen scale, which I am using to measure out my veggies. The veggies are kept frozen so I kept having to pause in the pouring of them in to the bowl that is on top of the scale so I can hit the bag against the edge of the sink in an effort to break them apart.
Then…the smell starts. It doesn’t smell good. I couldn’t figure out what it was, none of my food should smell like that, but I don’t have any candles burning, nor is anything else in the apartment creating a smell, so what the heck is it?
Even though I don’t like the smell I can’t figure out what it is so I keep doing what I am doing, figuring whatever is causing the smell will stop eventually, or make itself known.
I take a look at the pan on the back burner and realize it isn’t warming up, which makes me take a look at the stove knobs which made me realize holy shit I’d turned on the front element and was cooking my kitchen scale! Ack!
I immediately pulled the scale off the burner and strings of melted plastic spread from the bottom of the scale to the element, like melted cheese on a pizza, but smellier.
Sigh.
I put the scale upside down on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t think of any better place it should be put to cool down lol and stared at it in horror. Horror! This oh-so-awesome scale was a gift from my brother yeeeeears ago! I’ve been using this scale at least 7 years…holy crap I feel old now…but that’s besides the point! This scale is awesome, and I cooked it! Who does that?!?! 😦
Not gonna lie, I started to get upset not only because I was stupid and cooked the scale but because now I was going to have to try to find money to buy a new scale asap so I can keep on with weighing out my food, sigh. Then I remembered I have a back-up scale, yay! Couple years or so ago my mom got given a scale from a friend and she passed it on to me, it is a Weight Watchers scale that can calculate the points of a food while it is on the scale, cool huh? I didn’t use it because I wasn’t following Weight Watchers at the time and if I did need to weigh something, well, I already had a scale, shrug. Me being me though I kept the WW scale, in the box, in perfect condition, in a rubbermaid container where it would be safe.
Point to me for keeping the scale! 🙂
I pulled the WW scale out of storage after I finished dinner and was so close to being relieved when I realized it didn’t have a battery and it takes a 9V battery, not exactly something I just randomly have lying around. I know, I’m so weird right? 😉 lol
But fear not! When I went to put my dishes in the sink I tested the scale. It had cooled off so I flipped it over and tried turning it on and holy crap it works! Wowza! 😀 I cooked the scale so much I can see clear through to it’s innards but that sucker still works! Talk about quality made! lol
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the melted plastic that has become one with the burner off the burner…and ideas?
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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