After being I Peru for a while, and not having American food a while, I had started in craving American food. When I went out with my counselor for the first time, we bought some box mac and cheese that I can make at my house.
So what did I choose to do at 12:30 on a Wednesday night after I had already been lacking in the sleep department? Make some macaroni and cheese. That's the best way to prepare for school the next day, right?
So I go out into the kitchen, fully knowing/hoping/praying that my host family is sleeping. How the oven works is that it burns gas, but not fire. So you have to use a match to light it on fire and you can't really tell if it's on or not.
Before I could do anything, there was already food in the saucepan that I needed to use to boil my macaroni. I temporarily put it into a different bowl while I cooked my macaroni, and then would put it back after I was done using it- as if nothing ever happened. So I turn on one of the burner's and try a few times to get it to light... and it doesn't work. I tried with a couple different burners until I could get one to work. Unfortunately, as I said before, you can't really tell if the burners are on or not.
So I successfully make my mac and cheese and I enjoy it a lot as I sit in bed and watch YouTube. Was it worth all of the work I put into it? Looking back, no, but in that moment, yes. Little did I know.
So I wake up the next morning, and something seems to smell... different. I get ready and go about my morning as usual before I head off to school. Until I go back out into the kitchen, noticing how cold the house is, to eat my breakfast. So my host parents come in the kitchen to talk to me, and ask me if I had used the stove the night before. I just sat there wondering how they possibly could have known I was up making something. I faintly shook my head yes, as they explained to me what had happened. After that, I wasn't in trouble thankfully, and they said if I ever got hungry or anything to just tell them and such.
So what happened? I accidently left one of the gas burners on... and my host parents woke up before me to a gassy house, and of course went to turn it off and opened all of the door and windows in the apartment to let it out. That particular gas burner burned such a small amount of gas that I couldn't get it to let, or let alone even decipher that it was turned on.
Did I almost burn down the entire apartment building basically? Yeah... But was everything fine and ok in the end and did I learn something? Yeah! And that's what counts.
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