Have you done anything stupid in your kitchen, due to being in a hurry or not thinking, where you caused harm to yourself or caused some type of disaster or problem?

Does spilling my tea all over the kitchen table count?

Yes. In a quick lunch home from grade school. I was boiling water in a electric kettle and was running out of time. So I put on the stove top and pugged it in and cooked on the stove top. I melted the kettle and nearly gave myself a heart attack. I had my soup and went to class. No questions where asked. I was not grounded.

I used to clean my blender with my fingers, blades and all, plugged in. One day I realized what I was doing. Now, I religiously check that it’s disconnected first.

What a picture, @longgone: “with my fingers, blades and all, plugged in.” Edward Scissorhands couldn’t top that.

I was paring or slicing something, in a rush preparing a large family dinner. Somehow things slipped and I drove the very sharp point of a small knife right into the meat of my left hand, the side of the knuckle at the base of my index finger. It bled like crazy. I probably ought to have got stitches, but I wrapped it up and went on with cooking.

This was at my mother’s home on a visit, and everybody was coming.

A few nights later, staying at a hotel in Cambridge, I returned from an evening out and the wound suddenly opened. I rushed into the lobby and begged the desk clerk to get me some bandages, quick. He had to pause and stare first, while I bled into a wad of Kleenexes.

That same spot has been trouble over the years. This was in 2001, and I can still feel discomfort at the site. A little pressure, and it’s pain. I think I must have pierced the bone.

I’ve cut myself and burnt myself through haste and absent-mindedness many and many a time in the kitchen, including burning a patch on my pregnant belly when I was past 8 months because I simply didn’t realize how close it was to the skillet, but nothing else as bad as the deep stab with the paring knife.

@Jeruba Oh, you’re right! I feel so dangerous now! Also: ouch!!

I’ve always been one to move pretty fast, even when I’m not in a hurry.
One evening I baked a cheese and rice dish. I had a crawler. She was about 10 feet away, over by the sliding glass door. I had stirred the hot food and whacked the spoon on the pot to dislodge the sticky food back into the pot…..but some how it went the other direction and a big blob of burning, sticky rice landed on my baby’s face just below her eye. She started crying. I rushed to help her, of course. She was OK, but that was just wild, man. I felt so bad.

You are very dangerous @longgone!~

I was opening a can of corn and the can opener broke. So I decided to rip open the half open can with my hands with brute strength. I sliced my thumb and I wrapped with wet toilet paper adding more and more until the bleeding stopped. I didn’t want to spend all of my monthly food budget on a $250 plus ambulance ride. I was 19 years old and I was house and dog sitting for my dad and his GF while they took off to Mexico for 2 – 3 week vacation. My city had a winter heat wave and Mexico had a rare snow storm.

Wow. You guys have hardly any stories! I am doing stuff all the time to hurt myself. I just don’t pay enough attention, I am rushed, trying to work to a schedule, thinking on the next task, I am constantly cutting or burning or twisting something. I thought everybody did that. And let’s not even talk about tripping and falling and smacking stuff outside the kitchen. I am covered with scars.
The upside is that I have mad skills of a field medic nature. When I broke up a dog-fight last year and went to Urgent Care, they asked me if I was a medical professional, I had dealt with it so well.

Good thing they didn’t name me Grace.

Well, if they had, you’d be Amazing Grace.

@canidmajor, I went to the drugstore once and asked the pharmacist what kind of burn ointment I should get. She said, “What kind of burn do you have?”

I said, “Oh, I don’t have it yet, but I’m going to.” I knew my pattern of inattention and clumsiness in the kitchen was likely to continue, and there would be injuries. I was just being prepared.

She looked at me strangely. “Why are you going to do that?” she said.

Is it limited to our kitchens?

@Jeruba Ha! I know that song! I have been told “you won’t need that much” and I just chuckle.

@Dutchess_III: It’s in Social so feel free to let the conversation wander.

When I was also 19 I was hired to chop down some dead trees. I ended up with by my guess a petrified tree. I gave a mighty swing with every thing I had. The axe deflected and went right into my temple. I was next to my room in the cottage and I went to sleep it off. No blue light this time. After I woke up a couple of days later my boss gave me a $250 bonus from the $250 for chopping down 50 Or so trees.

I told this story the other day. I hope it wasn’t here.
I used to waitress at a pasta place. They made a killer lasagna! They cooked them right in the serving dish.
I was carrying a load to a table and my hands were full.
Suddenly, some how, one of those burning hot lasagna dishes slipped and came to rest against the tender skin of the lower side of my forearm!! Jaysus that was HOT!!
I spun around to put the load down in the closest place.
Bartender saw me coming, saw the problem in a heart beat and man he cleared that bar with both hands like we were gonna have sex on it! The dish rested against my arm good 8 seconds and boy did it HURT!!

About 20 years ago I cut my finger badly in the kitchen. I don’t remember what I was cutting. At first I had barely any pain, the amount of blood was insane.

Since I barely felt anything I was afraid I had cut my finger very very badly. I sopped up the blood on my finger to get a look and it was cut badly, but not enough for me to go to the hospital. The cut was quite long, but not extremely deep. I put pressure on it, put my hand above my heart, and it took over a half an hour for it to stop bleeding.

Just about a year ago I grabbed a hot pan. I had just taken it out of the oven. I’m usually very careful about that. Luckily, I realized what I was doing as soon as I did it, practically before I touched the pan, so it was quick. Burn pain always takes a few seconds, which I find odd. I immediately put my hand under cold water and the burn wasn’t bad. Cold water works! I use it for when I burn my mouth on food, immediately hold cold water in your mouth several seconds and repeat again. It really works. It has to be right away, it stops the burn by immediately cooling the area. Not ice, ice can burn just in its own, cold water, it can be straight from the tap.

Recently, I’ve left the oven on twice! My husband noticed. I wish it had an automatic shut off after an hour on.

My mom set her toaster oven on fire more than once when I was growing up. It was always frankfurters too close to the top element. My dad liked them well done. Lol. She would unplug it and let the fire burn out. I don’t remember if she actively put out the fire? Too long ago, and I was a little kid so my memory isn’t complete. It used to scare me. We were raised with a big fear of fire. I guess that’s why she stopped cooking them that way eventually. Not the first time though.

A very close friend of the family, I consider her to be like a relative, her stove didn’t light, and then she didn’t wait long enough for the gas to clear, and when she lit the stove a big flame. Her cabinets caught on fire, luckily she didn’t get badly burned and she was able to put out the fire before it spread.

My SIL went to take a shower and she had left the stove on and plastic on the stove or near it, I’m not sure. Her 5 year old came screaming to get her, the kitchen was on fire. She was able to put it out. Cabinets and part of the wall were burned. Smoke, the smell of burning plastic.

When I was very very little our neighbor in the building left a pot handle sticking out, and her daughter (I think she was 3) was near the stove and spilled boiling water all over herself. Very bad burns. I never leave a handle sticking out.

I never cooked on a front burner. My daughter had her son, when she was 16. When he was 2 my daughter decided to move to campus housing, just up the street actually.
I had told her never to cook on a front burner if it was at all possible.
I guess she disregarded my advice. I got a panicked call from her.
She had the child up on a chair in front of the stove so he could “help” her cook. (Stupid)
She had just turned the front burner off.
The child went to lean in and put his hand square on the hot burner to steady himself…

@JLeslie: Whenever I use the oven, I put the oven timer on. It won’t shut off automatically but it will beep and then I shut it off. I know if I was heating up a bagel or something on a work day, and in a hurry, I would inevitably leave the oven on if not for the timer.

Once at work, I put a bagel with butter in the toaster oven and it caught on fire. I had to take the plate (paper plate) with the burning bagel over to the window, open the window and just let the smoke go outside. I was in fear that the smoke alarm would go off and the building would have to evacuate, and how embarrassing because of me and my burning bagel. I never used the toaster oven after that.

Once at home, about 10 years ago, I had a bag of chips (nachos or something) near the stove, turned the stove on to boil a pot of something, and came into the bedroom. Within about a minute, the smoke alarm went off. I thought, “how could this be when I just turned the stove on” and went into the kitchen and the bag of chips had caught fire. Luckily I caught it and put it out, but it would have been a big disaster. Thank god for the smoke detector.

Other than that I’ve burned a few pots of rice here and there. I’m really paranoid now when I cook rice. I leave it on for 10 minutes and then will hover around the stove so I don’t forget it. It makes a big, smelly smoky mess when it’s burned plus the alarm goes off.

@jca2 I use the timer with oven too. I still messed it up.

My mom was really nutty to never put anything plastic near the stove and about the pot handles. We couldn’t put anything that easily caught fire anywhere near the oven or stove even when it was off, and I try to do the same. I’m a little less fanatic than her. My in-laws store plastic and paper inside the oven! My mom would have a heart attack.

@Dutchess_III Good idea about using the back burner.

Y’all are dangerous!!