Ane Mulligan's Melt Down

Ane Mulligan was in for quite a surprise when her mum-in-law visited. Here's what she had to say about it ~~~

Many years ago, in 1972 or thereabout, the hubs was injured in an accident at work. He was home and my mother-in-law came over to our tiny apartment to care for him. I was at work.

Now my British mother-in-law is a sweetheart and we're the best of friends, but she does tend to either rearrange things or put ours where she would at her home. Our apartment had been built in 1913 and was a minuscule 1 bedroom. The kitchen, besides being tiny, was ancient. The stove was so old, if I wanted to bake anything, I had to turn it on for an hour to get it up to temperature prior putting anything in it.

So, Mum was over for the day, caring for her son and helping me out with some cleaning (I LOVED that). She made him a lovely lunch of homemade fish and chips, using my new chip fry-basket, cleaned the kitchen afterwards, and then put things away. She was gone by the time I returned.

As per my usual routine, I arrived home, headed straight for the kitchen and turned on the oven to 450 degrees, then I went to greet the hubs and change my clothes. About 20 minutes later, we smelled this awful odor coming from the kitchen.

"What did you do in there?" the hubs asked.

"Nothing. All I did was turn on the oven."

I went to check. As I pulled open the oven door, a cloud of smoke poured out and on the bottom of the oven lay a pool of turquoise plastic. Yep. The handle of my new fry basket. Mum decided to store it in my oven instead of hang it on the wall. I should have noticed the empty hook when I came home.

We've laughed about that for years, but even though my own mother never stored anything in her oven, and I never stored anything in my oven, to this day I check the oven before turning it on.

Ane's Bio:

While a floppy straw hat is her favorite, novelist Ane Mulligan has worn several including legislative affairs director (a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. She believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. Ane writes her Southern-fried fiction in Sugar Hill, GA, where she resides with her artist husband, her chef son, and a mastiff that thinks he's people. Her debut novel, Chapel Springs Revival was an Amazon bestseller. Chapel Springs Survival releases in Dec 2015, and Home to Chapel Springs, in May 2016. She also has a short story, Way Down Upon a Suwanee Murder: a short ghost story, available for Kindle. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried Fiction website,Novel Rocket, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Be sure to preorder her December release, Chapel Springs Survival!