DINNER, FIRE AND THE PINK PLAGUE Published March 23, 2007 By Brandess Coates OKINAWA, Japan -- When I decided to surprise my husband Ryan with a homemade chicken cordon bleu meal, little did I realize that I'd be the one to get the biggest shock. We'd been taking evening Japanese classes all week to help us integrate faster into our new community in Okinawa, so we'd been eating out a lot. I thought a homemade meal would be a nice change. However, Ryan, a helicopter pilot at Okinawa Air Base, had scarcely returned home from work and kissed me hello before I noticed his concerned expression. Two consecutive, cautiously shallow sniffs only deepened the lines of concern. Two more sniffs were quickly followed by, "Do you smell plastic burning?" I looked down at the oven window, which looked sickeningly similar to an electric fireplace. ... I screamed. Fortunately, Ryan's "rescuer" instincts kicked in before I could inflict too much vocal cord damage. He gave those flames a quick and humiliating demise, using the extinguisher to dress them up in pink and then suffocate them to death! After the smoke cleared (literally), Ryan reached into the drawer below the oven where I store cookie sheets. He produced a handle that had once been attached to a plastic cutting board, but now its only accessory was a few white tentacles, like strings of melted marshmallow. I kicked myself for storing an obvious fire hazard beneath our habitually volatile oven. I can't pretend that our Japanese oven's propensity for overheating its surroundings was a new discovery. After all, I had previously used the heated countertops adjacent to the oven to melt butter for cracker chicken. I considered the counter's melting power to be a very nice feature since we don't have a microwave, but I failed to recognize the drawbacks ... like say, kitchen fires. My lack of preparedness was even more disturbing than my lack of commonsense. What would I have done if Ryan hadn't been there? Would I even have known how to use a Japanese fire extinguisher? What if that first line of defense failed? I realized that I didn't even know the Japanese equivalent for 911. I suddenly had visions of myself running down the street, screaming, banging on people's doors, trying desperately to communicate, and creating an unprecedented ruckus in the quiet town of Kitanakagusuku-son. This vision combined with the on-again, off-again shrillness of the fire alarm was too much, and my body was threatening to explode in sobs and tears. I could see Ryan was trying to summon strength he didn't have to keep from laughing. He took me in his arms, but I'm not sure if it was so much to comfort me as it was to hide his smirking face. After I relaxed a little, he allowed himself a mischievous grin and asked, "This is going to make it into the e-mails, isn't it?" I had to smile. "Yeah," I said. "I think it qualifies." He was probably anxious to see this story in the e-mail because it casts him as the hero. And without a doubt, Ryan is my Superman. But in this instance, it didn't take long for him to turn back into Clark Kent. The extinguisher hadn't stopped spewing until it was totally purged of its contents, even after Ryan released the handle. So the giant, pink peppermint heaps in the oven and on the floor were significantly bigger than they needed to be. Being the incredible husband that he is, Ryan told me that he would clean up the residue with the Shop Vac. I was more than happy to let him take over. Then I heard his wordless groaning noises that always follow an absentminded mistake. It seems the pundits down at the Shop Vac company got together and made vacuum history by inventing two cleaning tools in one. That's right - our high tech Shop Vac "easily converts into a powerful leaf blower!" This function may make for a great sales pitch, but if you happen to have a leaf-blowing Shop Vac aimed at piles of pink powder, it can also make for a domestic disaster. To quote Steel Magnolias, the place "looked like it's been hosed down with Pepto Bismol!" It was everywhere, even on top of the fridge. Thankfully, we survived the fire and the pink plague, and came out of it red-faced, but a bit wiser as well.