2 Things: 1) Damn that kamikaze mango and 2) I smell like toast…

Wow, I just found out that today is the 13th and laughed… you know, one of those, “if I don’t keep laughing, the pain and tears will overtake me” crazy fits of laughter that make everyone around you start backing away slowly. You know what they’re thinking, “that’s it, she’s finally lost it, move away slowly and don’t break eye contact or she’ll attack.”

Where to begin? Well, for starters, my whole apartment smells like burnt toast. You know how pervasive that burnt popcorn smell is? It gets into the rugs, your hair, your clothes, etc? Well kiss it, burnt popcorn, because burnt pumpernickel toast is coming for your crown. Ok, as usual, I have to rewind to previous craziness to show you the full path of how I ended up smelling like a pumpernickel pipe. This all starts 3 years ago when my husband packed up our toaster oven during our move from Philadelphia. He lovingly wrapped it in bubble wrap, secured it with packing tape, then placed it in a box. Unfortunately, when we unwrapped it 2 years later, there was no rack inside… Yeah, he wrapped it up nicely, but where the hell is the rack that actually makes the stupid toaster oven usable?  Too cheap to buy a new one or replace the rack, I’ve let the toaster eyesore sit in my kitchen, taking up precious counter space, while I toast bread in the oven (circa 1970-nothing).

One morning, I must have been toasting pumpernickel bread, but not had a chance to eat it. Don’t worry, I somehow did manage to remember to turn off the oven – you’d think that remembering both would be a given. Go figure. So when I went to use the broiler drawer (yeah, it’s underneath the oven – that’s how old this bad boy is) the other day, those little already toasted, dried-out pieces of pumpernickel started to get extra crispy. Of course I smelled pumpernickel toasting, but I thought it might be crumbs at the bottom of my oven, which I never clean. As the smell got worse though, I did get a little curious. When I opened the oven, the hand-sized pumpernickel slices had been reduced to charcoal sized… well, just charcoal. I could write on a sidewalk with this stuff.

And when I opened the oven, that odor wafted through my apartment and took up permanent residence in every organic and synthetic fiber I own. That includes the bag of clean laundry that I hadn’t folded and just left sitting in the entryway. So if you see me walking, most-likely at breakneck speeds with my elbows out to bumper other pedestrians out of the way, don’t stand downwind unless you want a hearty whiff of charred pumpernickel.

What else has the 13th brought me?  The realization that I’m also allergic to Champagne Mangoes now.  Yup.  That’s right.  I have a theory about this.  I think I’ve eaten too many mangoes in my lifetime and that the mango population decided enough was enough.  They met, organized, and one little mang0 (his name was Alphonso) stepped up and decided he was going to lead his mangoes to freedom.  He strapped on a histamine bomb and went in for the kill.  Well, he did it and now look at me.  A sniffling, sore-throat, potential-swined (or H1N1-ed), itchy mess and not a mango to show for it.