One more cup of coffee

Blast furnace v. Nathan's toys

Our house has very little heat in it. It has one outstanding heater, in the living room. I’ve been known to refer to it as the house’s nuclear blast furnace.

Nathan learned very early on, before it even got that cold, to give the heater a wide berth when crawling. His hands and knees never even come close to touching the heater.

Nathan hasn’t learned to make sure his toys also stay clear.

This morning, I arose to the smell of burning plastic. In Mega Blok (Lego knock-off) vs. Nuclear Blast Furnace, the block had no chance. I scraped most of it off, but you can still see some of the red plastic that the heater claimed for its own (mouse over the picture to see it highlight). The handle to his brand new Fisher-Price popcorn popper was also lying on the heater, but Fisher Price toys are evidently made of far sterner stuff than Mega Bloks, and, aside from the handle being slightly warm, you couldn’t even tell that it had spent all night absorbing jets of super-heated air.

Tonight, after working in the office for a while, I came back out to the smell of burning … fur? Tickle-Me-Elmo was a few short minutes away from becoming Oh-Shit-Use-The-Fire-Extinguisher-On-Me-Elmo. (“Ha ha ha ha – ha ha ha ha – that BURNS!”) Fortunately, Elmo seems to have recovered, probably because anything made for babies is designed to be completely fire-proof. (If you’re ever in a burning house, you’d probably do well to surround yourself with baby clothes and toys. Preferably toys made by Fisher-Price.)

So, on the list of things to do when Nathan goes to bed, checking for toys on the heater clearly needs to move to the top. And now, having saved Elmo so he can giggle another day, I’m off to bed.

Posted by Mike at December 27, 2005 12:01 AM