Magnetic Bag Clips: A Cautionary Tale

This year our Superbowl gathering was small: B, G and me. I didn’t feel like putting together a full blown spread, so I ran out to Trader Joe’s and picked up some wings, taquitos and garlic fries (yes, my arteries hurt reading that).

All I had to do was heat them in the oven. I set the oven to preheat and set my jelly roll pans out on the stove.

The preheat buzzer went off and I threw the food loaded pans into the oven and set the timer so I could retire to the living room to catch some of the game (okay, the commercials).

After about five minutes I smelled something from the kitchen – something plastic-y. I had accidentally melted a sandwich bag onto one of my stove burners last week so I figured it was just heating up and was stinky. I grabbed my tongs to rotate the wings and pulled open the oven door.

AND IT WAS ON FIRE.

I called to B in the living room ‘Um, I think the oven is on fire’. To which he replied ‘You think it is on fire? Or you know it’s on fire?’

I opened the oven door again. ‘Definitely on fire.’

B jumped up and ran into the kitchen. We had a short ‘discussion’ about how to put out plastic fires and settled on baking soda. Which worked beautifully by the way. Then we set about airing out our house, which was filled with noxious plastic smoke.

At this point, I had no idea what had caught on fire. Did one of my little nieces or nephews stash a toy in the oven the prior weekend (yes, I hadn’t turned on my oven in that long)? Did a plastic bag get dragged into the oven with the jelly roll pans? I had no idea.

I pulled the food out and tried to inspect the oven but it was still too smoky. I looked at the bottom of the pans and on one, there was a magnet. Huh? A magnet wouldn’t cause a fire.

Later on, I was cleaning up the kitchen and putting food away. I went to seal up the tortilla chip bag and couldn’t locate my bag clip. My MAGNETIC BAG CLIP.

The oven was clear of smoke so I peered inside and sure enough, in the char was the little spring from my incinerated clip.

So, take heed. Magnetic bag clips stick to metal pans. Duh. The strangest things happen to me. I’m a sh*t magnet. Pardon the pun.