my name is Glenda and I am a klutz OR melting mishaps, volume 642

I should not be allowed to use heavy machinery or knives without supervision... as some of you may know, I am a complete klutz sometimes, doing everything from slicing my hands to pieces while slicing bagels to turning on the wrong stove element and accidentally burning myself, or other things, by touching the element that shouldn't be on, but is... which brings me to today's installment of Stupid Glenda.

Having spent all morning cooped up in my office working, I decided to ease my malfunctioning brain by going downstairs and baking muffins with some of the remaining Canada Day Strawberries: most of them wound up being made into yummy strawberry jam, but I kept a few bags of berries in the freezer (sans sugar) for use in smoothies and baking.

mmm... yummy jam.
Michael, I suggest you stop reading here, and just focus on the jam... mmmm, jam.

Anyway, everything was just peachy with the baking... the mix mixed up nicely, the batter was tasty, and the muffin tin even cooperated by not falling onto the floor while I filled it up. but then, all of a sudden, there was this funny smell...

let's just say that using a stove as a counter because the rest of your kitchen is covered in stuff that currently has no other place to be is not a good idea. Especially when you've placed your plastic hand mixer on an element because its the only place where the weight of the cord wouldn't tip it over on to the floor. and especially when that particular element just happens to be the one over top of the oven's air vent...

To badly butcher a beloved kid's nursery rhyme, here is my hand mixer (the base of it anyway)...
and here is my element:

that plastic is not coming off.

I'll spare you the picture of me groaning and not-so-effectively suppressing curses.

but at least the muffins turned out okay!

PS: for those of you who like to laugh at me, other things i have melted on elements include plastic bread bags, plastic cutting boards (twice, but the second time Mike noticed before it stuck to the element), and a teddy bear shaped bottle of honey (again, i caught it before it stuck). I am also notorious for breaking glasses, chipping plates, smashing bodum coffee press pots (I think I bought Tiffany 3 replacements in the space of a year), and doing other irreparable damage to kitchen items. Consider yourselves warned.

and now back to my thesis where the only thing i can damage is my academic career...

ETA: the plastic actually came off quite easily, once it had cooled and hardened. I popped most of it off with a knife, and then heated up and wiped off the remainder. yay! As for that mixer... well, the motor works, but I think i melted the little bit that makes the mixer arms turn. oops! good thing Kieron moves in soon, so I can use his mixer instead of buying a new one! (insert devious grin here)