Fire in the hole

I wanted to make Lloyd some cinnamon rolls for his birthday. NOT the healthy kind, which “suck”. This requires using the oven, of course. In fact, it requires using the oven for the first time since the fire. Our oven situation is a little hairy: The apartment came with a four burner gas range and a small pull out drawer that functions like a toaster oven. I have used it precisely once, not very successfully, to make a chicken melt concoction. The less said about that, the better. Anyhow, Lloyd arranged to get a loaner oven/range from the base, because we can not live without baked potatoes and cookies. The loaner over barely fits in the corner of the kitchen and partially blocks the door to the laundry room. It has a 110 volt plug. 110 outlets are in short supply in the entire apartment, but especially in the kitchen. The only kitchen outlet is as far away from the oven as you can be and still be in the apartment. We use a barely-long-enough extension cord whenever we use the oven, and it has to traverse the gas range and the sink. Last week, the extension cord got into the flames on one of the gas burners. More accurately, I forgot to remove it before turning the burner on, but I’m not one to quibble over details. The resulting fire was small but intense and when the flames were beaten back, the cord looked like a toasted marshmallow. I had planned to have it checked out and replaced if necessary but I decided the cinnamon rolls were much more important than that foolishness, so I slapped masking tape over the damage and let ‘er rip. Best cinnamon rolls ever! Unfortunately, there was some collateral damage. Since I hadn’t used the oven for a while, we had gotten into the habit of storing things on top of it. I guess that’s not the greatest idea because it apparently does get quite hot and now we have a huge bunch of heat-blackened bananas and a couple of soggy misshapen apples.