In middle school, I was home alone after school one afternoon. I ate half a bag of microwave popcorn. I couldn’t finish the rest, but I wanted to keep it warm for later, so I folded down the top of the bag and I put it in the toaster oven. Brilliant, right?
It took maybe eight minutes for the bag to catch fire and set off the smoke alarm. I pulled the blackened paper out with tongs and hosed it down with the sink sprayer. So much for saving my snack for later.
The toaster oven was already toast. When my mom got home, she found it out in the cold on the porch steps. I told her that I’d tried to make a Pop Tart.
“And would you believe it just . . . burst into flames.”
Luckily for me, frosted sugar is highly flammable, so it could have happened. That’s why you’re not supposed to heat Pop Tarts in the microwave oven.
I don’t know why they don’t put warnings about toaster ovens on bags of popcorn.
Leave a Reply