Hot hot hot

Today I popped my "do something stupid and burn yourself" cherry. I had long figured I was immune because Mario averages three burns a week, making him a sort of lightning rod. My optimism didn't save me.

I'm afraid to say my burn was up to the stupidity standards Mario has set. His typical story is: "I opened the oven to get the chicken out and when I pulled out the pan with my bare hands, it burned me. How was I supposed to know it was hot?" To which I normally respond with a condescending laugh and a deprecating joke. Well my story merits the same treatment. Good thing Mario's asleep and doesn't read this blog.

I boiled myself some water for tea, made the tea, picked up the cup, and forgot about it somewhere on the way to setting it down on the dining room table. This is the hazard of trusting your body to your autopilot; sometimes, even he gets fancy. I realized I was in trouble just as I finished a complex dance move with my cup-bearing hand, and saw the liquid in the cup splash all over my first three fingers. There was instantly lots of pain, and for quite a while, especially since I didn't:

1. Drop the cup and run to the faucet to put out the six-inch flames on my hand.
2. Scream like a girl. Everyone knows this alleviates even the worst pain. This is why when a woman is screaming in the delivery room, you shouldn't panic. As long as she keeps screaming, she's as good as under general anaesthesia.
3. Put my hand up to my earlobe as Chun would have me do - according to her, earlobes are natural refrigerators; they absorb heat like a firstborn does your savings account. Well in this case, I would have ended up with a big blister instead of a face.

Instead I stood there and let the pain feast on my stupidity. Only when the water in the cup became completely placid did I put the cup down and do some of the aforementioned items.

I am reasonably sure this was a fluke, and that the next burn victim will again be Mario. Of course no one knows for sure but the burn gods. I'll be crossing the fingers I have left.