Reason #128 of why a sense of smell is a good thing

Today, for dinner, I popped something into the oven to heat up. I didn't think much about it after that point, and went off to work on some website or email or post or something that involved sitting in front of my computer, wiggling my fingers and making magic happen.

After a while, I had the sense something wasn't quite right. Tapping gently into the outside of my awareness, I heard an odd sound in the house I couldn't place. Both dogs were asleep on the couch, so they weren't the source of the noise. Neither of them perked up at the noise, so the source was unlikely an intruder.

Was the sound from the kitchen?

Puzzled, I walked back into the kitchen, and looked into the oven. My meal was heating up, but there was an odd, highly metallic smell blasting from the oven.

I opened up the door, and glanced at the melting thermometer on one of the oven racks. The cookie sheet was warped into bands of screaming aluminum, twisted into death throes as the paper around my meal was smoking.

The thermometer read 525°. I had set the oven for 350°

I quickly pulled everything out of the oven, turned the dial to off and left the door open, hoping it would cool into something other than a giant slag of metal.

Great, just what we don't need: another big expense. Time to go oven shopping. Maybe Megan wants to take me with her the next time she goes shopping for her new kitchen.

Clearly a good sense of smell would have triggered a quicker reaction. Trips to the steel mills of Gary have embedded that intensely metallic smell into my memories as HOT HOT HOT DANGER HOT!