self fulfilling silliness

so the hubs took the kids to walmart to pick up some diapers and a new body ball for me because i just realized the one i have is for shorter people, and while they were gone i started getting dinner ready. we're going to the hubs' company party tonight, which is loathsome, but my friends N and B volunteered to come HERE to babysit. they're married and have a boy, T, who is my boy's age and are apparently gluttons for punishment or something. but i love them and this is a shining example of why. i mean, who does that?

anyway, where was i?

oh, yeah, walmart...dinner...so there i am, standing at the sink peeling potatoes, listening to the chickens searing in the hot roasting pan on top of the stove, and my mind starts to do that crazy mommy wandering thing and before i know it, in my head, i've killed off me and the hubs (no idea how, it happened, it just did) and i'm standing there bawling because all i can think about is the look on my boy's face when they tell him we're de*d. (i'm too superstitious even to type the word.) i start thinking of the questions he'd be asking and who'd be taking care of my babies and i'm suddenly a wreck. i put the chickens in the oven, close the door, throw down the dish towels i used to hold the hot handles on the pan, and go back to my peeling, snuffling, and wild imagining.

from behind me comes a sound.

*poof*

it wasn't loud--in fact, it was very subdued. and it was familiar. so familiar that my brain knew what it was before my body did. my brain was thinking. "hmm. fire. but how? grease on the stove? nah." and then my body turned around and my brain said, "ahhhh. dish towel." 

yes, friends, in my insane reverie i had thrown the dish towel on the burner, which was still glowing red because i was distracted by my own lunacy and had never turned it off.  *poof*. had i been 12 inches nearer the stove i might have gone on fire myself.