Blam! The contents of the pressure cooker exploded on my hands. I screamed from shock and pain. Bits of matter scattered all over the floor.
I wasn’t anywhere near the Boston Marathon. I was in my kitchen preparing what was supposed to be a delightful Crispy Adobo Flakes dish for my sons’ lunch.
My hands and my chest were scalded by the sauce. The stove area looked like it was part of a crime scene except that there was brown sauce instead of blood and garlic cloves instead of shrapnel.
It was one of the stupidest mistakes I’ve ever made. It ranks way up there in the Top 5 together with turning on my laptop that was just drenched in a storm.
Of course I knew I wasn’t supposed to force open a hot pressure cooker. But the guy in the department store said its new safety feature is that it won’t open if the button wasn’t down. It looked kind of down already…sort of midway. I was hurrying because my son was leaving for work soon. This was his packed lunch. And I still had to fry it to get that crispy goodness.
My hands were so red, they looked like steamed crabs. I thought I needed to go to the emergency room for treatment. But after I soaked my hands in ice water and applied ointment, they didn’t look like they just suffered a horrifying experience. And the sting even lasted for a shorter time than when I de-seeded jalapeño peppers with my bare hands the first time I made Grilled Bacon Jalapeño Wraps (also in my top 5 stupid mistakes).
Although they looked like a leper’s hands when the peeling began, now, 3 weeks after the incident, they look like I just had them exfoliated at the spa. The skin is soft and smooth where the burn was.
I thank the Lord that despite my stupidity, my hands are scar-free and that He is always watching over me to keep me safe from permanent harm.
