Burnin' Down The House, Part Two

There has been a miracle! The images of the Virgin Mary and Elvis have appeared in the fried portions of my burner cover! I didn't want anyone to miss out so in case some of my readers are those who have trouble with those "Magic Eye" pictures, I added a few detail lines to the mysterious images. I plan to sell this on eBay so if Golden Palace is interested, they need to get in touch before I list it. Behold!
Here is another view. Click on pictures to biggerize them, as my friend W. writes.
As I mentioned yesterday, this is not the first time I've nearly set the house on fire via stove burner cover. The first time it happened, I was having one of the roughest allergy days ever despite doubling up on my pills, using my nasal spray and doing everything I could think of to unstuff my nose. Miserable, I still had to run a bunch of errands and when I got home from doing that, I piled all the bags and parcels on the kitchen counters, some of which I laid on the stove surface. Evidently I hit one of the controls, either when I unloaded the pile of stuff or moving things about to put them away, but I didn't realize this.

Because of the horrible allergy day, I didn't smell anything either. Sprocket (who was at that point known merely as Sprocket or alternately, Sprocket-Rocket) kept going over to the corner by the stove and sitting up in begging mode. The cabinet where I kept his treats was above and adjacent to the stove, so I thought he wanted treats. A few times I got up, retrieved a treat and gave it to him. He ate the first few but then started accepting them and laying them on the floor, only to resume his begging stance. When I wouldn't pay attention, he started scratching the cabinets. To my everlasting shame, I fussed at him about this and moved him from the kitchen to the den.

Sprocket wouldn't give up. He kept returning to that corner, scratching and whining and fussing. I tried giving him one of the treats he'd set aside. He'd take it, put it down and go back to scratching and whining. Finally I got the frightful idea that maybe there was a mouse in the treat cabinet, so I opened it and poked stuff around. I didn't see any rodents or rodent evidence, so I took him back to the den with me. In seconds he was back at the corner, scratching. I was impatient with him and said, "What on earth is the matter with you?!? What DO YOU WANT?" as I went to get the stepstool to better search the cabinet for a possible mouse.

I examined the cabinets thoroughly and didn't see anything amiss. I was fussing at my sweet little puppy, telling him there was nothing up there and I didn't know what his problem was. Then, as I looked down to descend the stepstool, I FINALLY saw what he'd been going on about. The burner cover closest to the cabinet was black, paint curling away from the metal and glowing red in the center! The burner cover was about 2 inches away from the Sunday paper I'd left lying on the counter.

Because my nose was so completely, totally stuffed up, I never smelled a thing. I had no clue anything was wrong. I have a smoke alarm, but it's in the hallway kind of around the corner from the kitchen so by the time it would have gone off, I'd have had a fully flaming kitchen. So the answer to my oft-repeated query, "Sprocket, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?" was, "Bitch, I want you to pay attention and fix this before you burn our freakin' house down!" I felt indescribably terrible for speaking harshly to the little fellow and admonishing him to be quiet. My heart broke as I went back to the store and bought him a rib eye, all his very own, and from that moment forward he was known as Sprocket-Rocket Hero Pup. My hero: