Well, things started to take a turn for the worse in the evening. Started to prepare for the breaking fast meal, cutting this and that. Thought I'd fry some rice. As always, before I even start to cook, I'd line the cooking area with newspapers to prevent oil from dirtying the floors and what-nots. It's a common practice. However, I think I used way too many newspapers this time round. While I was busy stir-frying the rice, a bit of newspaper caught fire.

I didn't panic. Not yet. It wasn't a big one really, more like a spark. So I just removed that bit of newspaper and wetted it in the sink. Left it there naturally, since I was more occupied with the outcome of the food. It was only about a minute later that I turned my head casually, checking on the sink, that I received the biggest shock of my life. The spark had grown and the paper was in flames. In flames! Flames as huge as my T-shirt! I just froze. Nothing else occured to me.

Only a few seconds later did I yell to my brother to grab the fire extinguisher (yes, we have one in the house) from the kitchen cupboard. And yes, you must be wondering, why the heck didn't I myself run and grab the device myself? *knocks head* I was afraid the fire would grow and grow and eat up the entire house. Argh! But yeah, the brother grabbed the fire extinguisher, handed it to me and I aimed it at the flames with all my might.

Soot was everywhere.

Needless to say, it was a life-threatening experience for me. The amount of smoke made me tear. Thank God for the open-all-windows policy. The dad and me make sure that we have them all open so as to let air circulate. The smoke thinned out pretty quickly but after that I was quite at a loss, seeing the amount of cleaning up that I had to do. Sigh. Ordered the brother to sweep all the ashes to one side while I transferred ash-ladened dishes and cutlery to the bathroom. They had to be washed and cleaned later. Swept a bit as well and mopped the floor and disaster-struck areas with my magic liquid. And have I mentioned that the clothes which had been left hanging from the ceiling had been affected with greyish-black, sooty smoke? Double sigh.

I almost destroyed the kitchen.

But that's not the end of the day, no. At about 10.45pm while I was finally seated, resting my aching back and thighs, enjoying a mindless TV programme and ogling at the same time, the electricity went off. It was just.. cut. I thought perhaps the power supply people never received my payment or something but way hey hey..the neighbour opposite me suffered the same fate too. Practically every unit had their power cut off, so that made the entire block (we live in flats) dark and lifeless. Even the streetlamps on our side of the street were down. Hmmph. Though I wondered why the corridor lights were still bright and shining?

I thought the blackout would lapse for maybe a few minutes, but after waiting for about 15 minutes, I became restless. Informed the dad who was away at work and then proceeded to search for the power supply people's emergency number in the phonebook. No luck. So I tried to get a callsearch, only to discover that the service ends at 11pm daily. It was already 11.05pm. *pulls hair* Right, so I asked some friends if they could help to surf for the number online, which they did. *thankful thankful* Called the number and rattled off the problem and the guy at the other end muttered something and hung up. Hung up. Okay, I supposed he said something about the matter being looked into and all that crap so I decided to be patient again and give some more minutes which had accumulated into half an hour by then. *gasp* Never had a blackout been that long!

At 11.45-ish pm I called again, this time sounding a little bit irate. Okay, he was still polite so I decided to be polite and ended the conversation with a "thank you very much". Hey, at least I remembered my manners! By that time I was getting pretty sleepy so I just plonked down onto the couch, waiting. A helluva lot of waiting I did. Decided to have a light switch on so that I'd know when the power was restored successfully. Barely 5 minutes after having closed my eyes, hey presto! Everything was back to normal.

God is the All-Exalted.