We Almost Burned Our House Down Last Night. True Story.

For the past year or so when we want to bake a potato in our house, we pop a potato into our handy-dandy microwave bag. Something similar to this:
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We got it from my mom a couple years ago, and we use it all the time. It’s awesome and totally works.

But.

A freak accident with it almost caught our microwave on fire last night.

No joke. I should have taken a picture of the red hot embers that had formed on the bag when it got stuck between the revolving tray and the side of the microwave. Because the bag could no longer rotate, the heat just continued to build. I walked into the kitchen to put my plate in the sink and saw smoke pouring out of the microwave. At first I thought it was just steam, but immediately realize that it was smoke.

A lot of it.

I quickly opened the microwave door and saw that it was about to go from embers to flame. I grabbed a non-burning corner of the bag and threw it into the sink and turned on the tap. Smoke was billowing through the kitchen at this point.

CootieGirl felt so bad – she was the one that put the potato in the microwave to cook. But I told her it wasn’t her fault – it could have happened to anyone because the bag is just a tad too big for the microwave tray. I’m just grateful I walked into the kitchen when I did because it still had another 3-4 minutes to go on the timer! Had I not walked in, it surely would have turned into a flame and who knows what would have happened at that point.

So now the question: do I get another potato bag? I don’t think so. I think we’re going back to our old method of sticking potatoes with a fork a few times and putting it in the microwave by itself. Much safer that way. We get to keep our house that way.