We had excitement around the office this week! Someone (who shall remain unidentified) put a polar fleece-wrapped heat/cold pack in the microwave and left it for far too long. The next thing the rest of us knew, there was a strange chemical-y smell in the hallway, and since we’re being good about safety procedures lately, we evacuated until the source could be found. Even once they found the source, we hung out for a while, because it probably wasn’t ideal to breathe.
The funny part to me, though, was the aftermath. When the smell had gone down, I was in the kitchen for another reason, and I noticed funny waxy stuff under the window. I opened the window to peek out, and found that someone had taken the glass turntable out of the microwave and stuffed it out the window when the damage was discovered. Outside, the eviscerated heat pack lay on the glass circle in a pool of its own waxy guts. I don’t know if it exploded, or just melted through the bottom of its pouch, but the top polar fleece was untouched and as cheerful as ever until you nudged it to see the carnage of the underside. It would have looked quite gruesome except the guts were white.
I suppose my friend still has us beat, though. On hearing about our microwave evacuation, she told me about the time in her office when microwave + foil + not paying attention to the inevitable byproduct of the first two = microwave literally ON FIRE.
I guess we’ll just have to work our way up!
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