PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Yesterday evening, I decided to bake a pie. A strawberry-rhubarb pie. I had a recipe from Ye Olde Internet, and I quickly threw everything together. I followed the directions - I do not understand this brushing of the milk on the crust, it pooled and sat there through the entire process and grossed me out. But I did not follow the direction that said, "Put a baking sheet under the pie to catch the drips." Whatevs! The oven already had some pizza cheese burned on - what's a little extra pie, hm?

So I checked the pie at the lowest time allotment for baking - still not done. I took my pie crust ring off, so the whole thing would brown. Apparently (or at least this is the conclusion I've drawn) this is what started Pie Armageddon In The Oven. Suddenly the pie decides to leak. And when I checked it 10 minutes later, there were just a few little red drizzles, and I thought, "Well, hell, I should have done that baking-sheet-thing" and I put a piece of aluminum foil under said pie.

Roughly six minutes later, we were alerted to Pie Armageddon by the whooping of our smoke alarm. And not just any smoke alarm, but the one tied to our security system. So the whooping was also taking place on the outdoor siren (free! due to excellent negotiation skeelz). I ran to cancel it, meanwhile, James started opening windows and I dragged a fan around to start airing things out. The house phone rang - but nobody was on the line, I knew it had to be the alarm company, so I also got out my cell phone (second on the call list). As I looked up, I saw a white light sweep across the side yard.

Giant fucking fire truck. Less than 5 minutes, people. Can I tell you how AMAZED! and GUILTY! But still AMAZED! I was? Four (handsome, uniformed) firemen piled off the truck as I walked to greet them. (James? Inside fanning at the smoke alarm and canceling the alarm every time it went off.) They seemed a little disappointed, all this fuss over a pie, but then they smelled the burnt sugar carried on the wind behind me, and they knew I wasn't covering for a pyromaniac nephew living in the basement. One fireman offered a fan, to air out the house, and I was so dreadfully embarrassed, I declined.

James noted it would be nice if the police response time was as fast, maybe we wouldn't have lost all our stuff. He also went to the freezer to get out a large summer sausage that we'll be taking (along with some cheese) down to the fire station as a thank-you for the unbelievably fast response. Granted, the station is less than a mile away, but I was agog at how quickly they were there.

FWIW, the pie? Pretty good. But not worth all the ruckus! And next time? Baking sheet under said pie.

Labels: cooking, foibles, food, I'm Crazy

Well, the head teller supervisor at my Commerce Bank has had a good hearty laugh at my stupidity (and self-deprecation on the phone) this morning.

Let's backtrack, shall we?

A few weeks ago, I got this brochure in the mail, extolling the fantastic new features of my bank's new ATM's. The shining feature was that you no longer needed to use an envelope for deposits - you just put the ol' check right in, and your receipt gives you fancy features, like a snapshot of the check you deposited! So, last night, I finally swung by the bank to deposit three (3) checks. I got a phone call from a co-worker while I was waiting in line, it was another whack-a-mole needing whacking, but then the car in front of me left & I hastily got off the phone & began my business.

Mentally calculating the amounts on the checks, I entered my card, my PIN, and then the information to make the deposit. Ignoring the screen that said "PLEASE INSERT YOUR ENVELOPE NOW", I shoved the three checks into the slot that sucks things in. Hmmm. Only two made it. So there I sat, with a third check in my hand that the ATM thought I'd deposited, and I panicked. I selected the option to deposit AGAIN and THEN, CONTINUED MY TRANSACTION for the third check, without an envelope. So now I've lied to the bank, that I've deposited more money than I actually have, AND my checks are willy-nilly lying in the ATM footloose & fancy-free, with no envelope containing them. I withdrew some cash and wondered how I would handle this tomorrow.

Which brings us to this morning. After my 8 a.m. conference call (with people in Dublin! I love how instead of "um" they say "Ehhhhm".) I called the bank. And of course you have to go through the 800-number point-of-all-customer service, and I had to explain that I was stupid, and could I please have the number for the actual branch. And they gave me the direct line to Karen, head teller supervisor. Who did not answer, and I had to leave a message that went something like this:

Good morning! My name is Jennifer Nu***, and..well, I am a complete idiot. I'm calling because last night, at the ATM, I completely lost my mind and thought I could deposit checks without an envelope. Because of the brochure, see. And then that didn't work really well but I KEPT DOING IT and now I want to not only apologize, for making your job more difficult, but also for being stupid, and to find out if everything in the end will be ok.

She called me back laughing. I told her that I couldn't believe my own stupidity and that I would understand if they shut down the drive-through when they see me coming, because imagine the havoc I could wreak with access to those pneumatic tubes! She wondered aloud if perhaps I had jammed the machine up, but then we realized that I hadn't, because I had been able to GET ANOTHER CHECK INTO THE MACHINE after the first screw-up. I told her, who knows what else I might have tried to put in that ATM if I hadn't come to my senses when I did.

Stupid. On the heels of yesterday, declaring a mini-jihad on idiots. Serves me right. But I'm still funny, even when I'm stupid, and I made Karen's day. Somebody's going to call me, at some point, to confirm that I haven't taken ATM #M103 off the grid and that my deposits have been reconciled. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep my technological adventures to a minimum, and I'll be a little kinder to the stupid.

Labels: foibles, life