O/S disasters.... let us share...

YORKSHIRELASS

Oh this has made me giggle. I helped to organise a very old style Christmas party for a local charity. Everyone brought food for the buffet, and a prize for the raffle which was held at the end of the evening.

One little boy was overjoyed to win what he thought was a big tin of Quality Street, except when he got it home and his Mum opened the tin it was full of egg sandwiches which had got put on the wrong table!!!

Not really on the same vein as the other disasters but it still makes me laugh.

Primrose

Forgetting to split the chestnuts before putting them in the microwave to cook. There followed a very big bang as they all exploded and the inside of the microwave took hours to clean.

And my most embarrassing: Sticking a panty liner in one of my shoes at work as an emergency protective measure when the head of a nail started to poke up through into the heel. Slipped my shoes off under the desk and then went walkabout across the office. At some point the panty liner had come detached and was lying abandoned in the middle of the office carpet, with everybody noticing it and conspicuously trying to pretend they hadn't seen it.

Stoney_G

Pancakes. They are my enemy. I tried to make some for my then relatively new bloke - they were awful!! All doughy and lumpy and floury. I had put cinnamon in them and the boyf said (after taking a photo of the disaster), 'mmm, they're lovely, they taste a bit like a shoe though, a cinnamon shoe'. Now everything that tastes bad is a 'cinnamon shoe'!!

orangesmartie

Spent a good couple of hours reading this thread this evening.

Some of my own howlers:

1) At 17 I moved in with my (now ex) OH. In a fit of domesticity I decided I'd clean the oven. Liberal spray of oven cleaner all over the oven and grill. OH came home from work and we got a bit....er....distracted. Eventaully went back to the oven. Oven cleaner had set like granite. The grill never worked again.

2) Just moved into a flat on my own and it was my first day in a new job. Decided I'd make fajitas for tea. Put the oil in the wok and went to answer the phone. Came back to find flames licking up the wall and the kitchen full of smoke. Threw a wet towel over the pan and then decided to open the back door because I thought the dog was choking. Cue a second explosion of the fire. Picked up the phone and rang........my mum! Not the fire brigade but mum.

3) One evening just before christmas there were a couple of us left in the office. We had a late meeting and it was going to be a bit tough. So before the hordes arrived I decided I'd fortify us all with some tea and mince pies. One chap asked for his to be warmed. Put it in the microwave and wandered back to sit on the desk for a chat. Was very startled by the crackling noise and loud bang. Ruhed back to the kitchen to remember that I'd left the foil wrapper on!

meritaten

this isnt my disaster! its OHs. a couple of christmases ago I made a lovely huge sherry trifle for dessert (was feeding about ten people for lunch). my OH offered to whip the cream for it as I was dishing up first course. great - the NEW stick blender I had for christmas came with a little container for such things so I let him get on with it. fast forward to dessert - he had spread the cream and sprinkled on the hundreds and thousands and I was proudly dishing it out when DD who had the first portion said ' this is lovely - but whats the crunchy bits in the cream?' hundreds and thousands I replied. 'er - I dont think so - I just scraped them off and its still crunchy'. looks at OH and realisation dawns - whips trifle off everyone who has been served and hisses at OH ' did you take the plastic protector off the blades?'. OH says ' I thought they were supposed to be on there'. so I had to hunt out LAST xmases christmas pud (which hadnt been eaten) and ding it for everyone!
lmao - and that was the xmas dinner where i was last to sit down with lunch and opened the bottle of champagne which foamed out all over my dinner! yeuch! i like wine WITH my food - not ON it!
and it didnt stop there - I had bought cut price chocs and yes - when I opened the box - they all had that white bloom on them that screams - out of date!
Total disaster - but the upside is - the kids and their kids now have xmas dinner in their OWN houses!!! and as they total fourteen now - its a blessing.

uolypool

Eggs are my nemisis, 1 christmas I put eggs into a pan to boil for egg mayo the next day and went into the living room,yep you've guessed the rest completely forgot about them till a bang from the kitchen.Went to investigate to find a burnt pan and egg and eggshell all over the ceiling.:eek::eek::rotfl::rotfl:I can laugh about it now but fast forward about 5 years and hey ho I did it again:eek: I just don't bother anymore .

euripidesralph

FairyElephant wrote: »

OK - I have stopped laughing and got control of myself now......

USEFUL INFO I HAVE LEARNED IN LIFE:

1/ Do not microwave tinned potatoes on high - they explode. (I'm not talking in the tin - I do have more sense than that - I put them in a microwavable dish first!)

1/ a/ When you have microwaved tinned potatoes on high, and they are exploding - do not open microwave door...potatoes continue to explode, covering you in burning hot debris and spraying it all over the kitchen.

2/ Do not use clothes washing powder in the dishwasher (it was an honest mistake!) - the resulting foam is a nightmare to clean, and your dishes need rewashing as they are all streaky.

3/ Do not IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES spray the cat with 'catnip spray' in the mistaken thought that it is flea-spray. The cat will a/ run away and get on top of kitchen cupboards where she knows you cannot catch her, b/ attempt to lick all her own fur off (somewhat ecstaically!) c/ eat an enormous amount of catfood and then d/ sleep very very solidly for a very very long time, whilst dribbling lakeloads of slimy cat dribble.
Whilst this is very funny in retrospect, at the time it is very worrying and results in very embarrasing telephone calls to the vet!!!!!

:rotfl:oh thank you so much that made me cackle out loud at the computer and may have tipped my boss off to the fact I wasnt working but soooooooo worth it

To add to that - dont mix the cat away spray with the catnip spray when trying to convince your kitten not to climb the christmas tree - cat, baubles, tinsel and tree fronds everywhere - resulting in me sat on the floor bemused and OH sniggering whilst trying to retrieve the hopped up cat from a pile of tinsel !!! :rotfl::rotfl:

fairtrade

Lent a pressure cooker to a friend. He didn't bother to read the instructions. He had used it, but tried to open it before the pressure had released, somehow he managed to get the lid off and released loads of scalding steam. Rather than put the pressure cook on his hob or worktop he put it on the kitchen floor - it stuck instantly to the kitchen carpet. Didn't save much there with a new carpet for him and a pressure cooker for me. I have never lent him a kitchen utensil/gadget again. Just imagine the damage he could cause if left unsupervised with sharp knives.

euripidesralph

This thread has been brilliant and just thought of my "finest" moment

about 5 years ago I had taken myself off to live in wales in a top floor flat and was feeling terribly independant

So decided rather than get a pay a plumber to put in my washing machine - I decided I had seen my dad do it often enough so it couldnt be that difficult

well it wasnt - in fact it was a snap and rather smugly popped a load of washing in and went to watch tv

(must explain here that I had pushed the WM into its ready little alcove and all was looking pretty)

I listened carefully all sounded right

then came the knock at the door and my downstairs neighbour looking half miffed and half worried and asked if I had a leak as two damp ceiling tiles had dropped on the top of his dining room table accompanied by wooshing and a minor deluge

"no I would have seen it when I plumbed the machine in " says I - even showing off that I had done it
He politely asks to look

then (bless him) I could see his shoulders shaking

I had thought the outlet pipe was just an extra

Fortunately he saw the funny side - and plumbed it in properly

:rotfl:

sillyvixen

my most expensive os disaster was finding a recipe here and realising i had all the ingredients and could use up the eggs in the fridge (only use eggs in baking) i decided to take the laptop into the kitchen and follow the recipe - during some energetic beating of the mixture i managed to knock the laptop off the kitchen counter and onto the ceramic floor tiles... turned out to be the most expensive cake i had ever made!!!

learned a lesson that day - if you find a recipe on line and have no ink in the printer copy the recipe down before proceeding!!