Lucy Almost Exploded and BB Almost Melted

Megan probably wishes I was watching The Nutcracker, one of her favorite things as a kid, which is playing on our tv now, but ....

Last night, Lucy almost got blown up.

It was around 7:45. I was on the living room couch, Megan was in our room getting BB ready for bed, and Lucy was in her room, begrudgingly picking up her toys. Slowly.

She only uses one hand to pick up one toy at a time, and it's a pile of toys she has to get through. One of her recent behaviors, like of the past two or three weeks or so, she's been just straight up dumping her big, light-green, see-thru, plastic toy box on the floor in the middle of her room. Mama makes her pick them up every night.

She's doing it now, as I type. Picking up her toys, that is. It's almost 24 hours after the scene I'm describing. Well, I'm getting to it.

So... okay, you walk in her room, take a step or two and there's a mattress on the floor by the left wall and a toy chest and dresser on the right. Her black fan, plugged into the janky, old outlet on the left wall behind her bed, the only outlet in the room, is sitting on its side in the middle of the room. It's a small, circular fan, there only for the purpose of making a sound during naps and bedtime to drown out the other noises her parents can't help but making in this small apartment.

For some godforsaken reason, she started dragging her 2-ft-wide toy box over piles of toys, the fan, and its chord, to the 3-ft-wide space between her bed and dresser. I think she was trying to free up space to access toys in the other part of the room. After she dragged the toy box into place, she kept walking around the fan to pick up one toy, and walk it back over to the toy box.

After watching her repeat this several times, I say, "You should move your fan."

Then I looked away. A minute passed, during which I zoned out into my video game.

Then, a bright, light-orange flash of light, followed by a "Pop!" came from her room. Simultaneously, the fuse clicked off in the kitchen, the tv turned off, the clocks went out, and I think some lights turned off, but just for a second. Picture all that happening at the same time.

Then, quiet.

My first thought was that Lucy was being electrocuted and couldn't talk. "Lucy!" I called out and I got up and dashed to her room. I found her on her feet, unhurt, but shaken. She was just starting to walk away from it; she must have been too dazed and frightened to move at first. I was so glad she was alright, and I hugged her and asked her if she was okay and what happened and stuff.

Of course she couldn't answer other than to say, "Yeah."

I didn't even look in the direction of the outlet, where the flash had come from. Megan came in soon afterward, and asked what happened.

"There was a flash of light," I remember saying. Probably an, "I don't know," in there too. Either that or I thought it.

She walked over to the fan and picked up the chord, which we both see had become unattached from the back of the fan, where it was, like, you know, soldered on or whatever. She immediately unplugged the now-deadly, possible-Jack-Bauer-torture-instrument from the wall. Without a word, she walked out to into the hall, and then back in with a plastic outlet cover and plugged it in. Then there were two covers in that outlet.

After that I stopped being a lazy father and brushed her teeth and put her to bed.

Later on, I looked at the chord. It looked like it had been cut with a knife that was on fire. It was a mostly clean separation, with burn marks going down about an inch on one corner. The back of the fan showed similar burn marks, copper-colored on black. I looks like the explosion went in one particular direction, to the down-and-left out the back of the fan.

So I dunno what Lucy was doing, but whatever it was made that shit explode.

So that was crazy.

Then, today, I was holding BB, and cracking this glow stick that you gotta crack to get it to glow, ya know? It was a really thin one--like a 1/8-inch thick. Not much thicker than a Q-Tip stick, but about twice as long. Slightly pink-ish purple gel-stuff that glows bright when bent and cracked was inside. BB was sitting on my lap while I was sitting on the couch.

While I'm cracking it, the thing breaks open and glowing, pink-ish purple, glowing liquid squirts out onto BB's hand and up her arm! Stupid cheap toy from a fellow kid's birthday party that was actually nice to get in the first place, thank you party-hosting fellow parent.

Imagining what would happen if she put that hand in her mouth, I grabbed it with one hand, put the other arm under her butt, and carried her to the kitchen. Somehow, without letting her put that hand in her mouth for five seconds, I got the sponge wet and wiped her up.

Tonight, I'm just happy for a normal evening.

In other news, school is out. For. Winter. And I've actually stayed in the house after Megan came home from work today. We had pizza and mixed veggies for dinner. Megan put on the Nutcracker. Now it's 7:48. Goodnight.