Yet another embarrassing story

Remember the post I did a little while ago about all of my most embarrassing moments? Well, a bunch of you have asked me what my most embarrassing moment was, the one that I wouldn't admit to in that list.

Okay, so it was only one of you. And it was my sister. But doesn't it sound so much cooler to think that a bunch of people read that post and were intensely interested in learning more about me?

So calm down all of you interested and adoring fans, I will tell you what I did that was so horribly embarrassing. I may lose all of my dignity, but since I didn't have that much to begin with, I am sure I will be okay.

One fine day, when I was a sophomore in college, I decided that it would be really cool if I made sopapillas. Now for those of you who don't know what sopapillas are (including myself for reasons that will be explained later in the story), they are little fried pieces of dough--basically a central american recipe for a scone.

Looks absolutely delicious, no?

Anyway, I had a box of pre-made sopapilla mix, and I was going to experiment with making these little beauties. I was a complete novice at cooking anything other than grilled cheese or fried eggs, and I wanted to make something new and exciting. So I followed the directions, which told me that I needed the mix, some water, and a pot filled with oil for frying.

So I grabbed all of these things, and set out to make the most wonderful fried dough I had ever had in my life. I put the mix in a bowl, combined it with water, and then began kneading the dough. I put oil in my pot, and turned the flame to medium high. Then I realized that I needed to roll out the dough, and cut it into little squares, much like the one in the picture above.

I got out our rolling pin, and began rolling the dough into a large blob on the counter top. Everything was going well, and I felt so good that I was being all domestic-like and cooking a wonderful little treat. As I stood there, humming a little ditty to myself, I suddenly heard a whooshing sound behind me. You know the kind of whoosh that you hear in movies, when something big catches on fire? Yeah, it was that kind of whooshing sound.

I turned around to see what had happened, and there before me on the stove was a pot with huge flames coming out of it. The flames were probably a couple of feet tall, and they were reaching up towards the ceiling of our apartment. A bazillion thoughts started running through my head:

"Crap! What do I do? What should I put on it? Water? No, you can't put water on an oil fire! Crap! Our whole apartment is going to go up in flames! Ahh, that means all of the other peoples' apartments connected to ours are going to go up in flames! It is burning our ceiling! I am going to die. We are all going to die!"

It kind of looked like this picture, except I was the only one in the kitchen, and I definitely was not smiling. Or wearing a chef's uniform.

I think I yelled something like, "Oh crap!" because my roommate Kera came running out of her room. When she saw the fire she was kind of stunned and just looked at it, then looked at me with a "why is there a huge fire in our kitchen?" kind of look.

Luckily I spotted that our front door had been left open. Feeling quite panicked, and kind of heroic, I grabbed the huge pot full of flaming oil and ran towards the door. When I got outside I set it quickly on the ground, and looked around me for some dirt that I could throw on the fire to put the flames out. I grabbed a handful of dirt and rocks, and threw it on the fire.

The rest of the story is kind of a blur, but somehow the fire got put out. Once the immediate danger was over I noticed that my bangs and hair were singed and my finger was pretty burned.

Oh, what's that? You want a closer view of the carnage?

Yep yep yep, my finger was pretty much destroyed. I called my dad up to ask him what I should do about it (he is a firefighter/paramedic after all). When I told him what I had done, I think he wanted to disown me and never claim me as his daughter again.

Me: Dad, I just lit a pot of oil on fire, and burned my finger really badly. Somehow I touched my finger, and a huge layer of skin came off.

Dad: What? How the heck did you light a pot of oil on fire?

Me: I was making something tasty. It didn't work out.

Dad: What did you do? Did you put it out?

Me: Yeah, I couldn't remember what to do, so I carried it outside really quickly so it wouldn't burn down our house.

Dad: Stephanie (in a scolding tone)! You know what to do! Put something on it to put out the fire! Baking soda, baking powder, flour--anything like that!

Me: Ahh! I couldn't think of what to do! Well, what should I do now about the flesh that is hanging off of my finger?

Luckily he took pity on me and told me to go to the store, get some burn ointment, and then wrap it up in gauze. So I drove to Walmart, still in shock from the fact that I almost burned down our entire apartment complex, and got all of the necessary things.

Well, in the end it all worked out. That finger killed me for the next couple of months, but eventually it healed up. I still have a scar on my finger, so every time I look down at it I can remember what happened. I try to remember the story a little differently--something about saving an unconscious child from a burning building--but in the end I just have to admit that I was an idiot.

I wish I could say it was all worth it, and that the sopapillas were incredibly tasty, but I just couldn't think about making them after that incident. To this day I still haven't tried sopapillas, and will probably never try to make them again.

There goes my dignity.