Just when I thought I was getting good at this….

I started a tiny little fire in my hotel room this morning.

But let me back up….

So, today I am in Barajas Spain, which used to be a small village outside Madrid…now it is the neighborhood next to the Madrid airport. Cute place tho! Anyway, so I had my mini freak out moment on the plane last night…something along the lines of “wait! Holy crap, I barely speak Spanish anymore, how do I get to my hotel again? What if I: get lost, lose my passport, lose my bank cards, get robbed, fall down and really hurt myself, and all the other worries my mind can come up with…!!!”

Then it went smooth. I called the number my hotel gave me for their free airport shuttle. And despite the poor connection, my even poorer Spanish and a lady YELLING into the phone (I think due to the bad connection and not my bad Spanish), I managed to ask to be picked up and communicate where I was standing.

So…now I’m thinking, “Yeah! I got this.” And part of me says…really you’re proud of your mad skills of calling the free shuttle??

Once I get all checked in, I resist my urge to hibernate in the safe little hotel room and head out (at 11pm). Nope, don’t believe it was bravery that sent me on my way. What had me brave the local area by myself at almost midnight was my quest for milk.

See, Karen MUST have coffee the moment her eyes open in the morning. None of this get dressed and leave the room in search of coffee….hells no! Through trial and error on other trips I got the “coffee dilemma” all worked out. I have a little plug in travel coil that sits in the mug, gets blazing hot wicked fast and heats the water. Then it’s just a bit of instant coffee and some milk. Yes, instant coffee. I ain’t picky in a pinch and if the choice is bad-ish coffee fast or great coffee slow…well you see the answer.

I managed to procure the milk, which actually ended up cream, to the absolute horror of the Chinese couple running the only little store open this time of night. See, cream was in a tiny carton, good. Milk was in big 1 liter cartons only, bad. And I like cream in my coffee. But evidently, cream vs. Milk in Spain is not even a question. They kept kinda yelling NO, not for coffee, for cooking! Milk for coffee, milk for coffee! Seriously, they almost wouldn’t let me buy the cream….they were convinced that I didn’t understand what it was, surely no one would put that in their coffee!!

But, with the help of Google translate….I was confident that nata would be just fine in my coffee, despite the stink eye the lady gave me at checkout.

So, I got up this morning and got going on my coffee making scheme. I plugged in the thing….but realized I had neglected to put the water in my cup. Doofus.

And here’s where things got a little hot, a lot hot.

Rather than be smart and UNPLUG the thing designed to get really hot, wicked fast….because that would slow me down, I decide to briefly set it on the little piece of cardboard I wrap it in for travel…surely it will be ok just for the 5 seconds it takes to put water in my mug in the bathroom 3 feet away?

Nope, not ok. I came back to the cardboard already smoking and smoldering and the thing glowing RED HOT. And in the 3 seconds it took to walk between the door and where it was sitting….the cardboard BURST INTO FLAME!!

CRAP!!!!! I ran over and grabbed the thingy, and started patting the cardboard with my palm. Sounds kinda “gonna burn yourself stupid” but it did the trick and I did not get burned. Imagining that the crisis has been averted, I dipped the still RED hot thing into the water, which made interesting popping and sputtering sounds.

And then, I smelled more smoke. I looked over and dammit, the cardboard was in flames again. Big flames. Way too big for hand patting. I panicked just a little this time. How was I going to put this out?

Well, in my desperate scan of my immediate area the only non-combustible item was my metal water bottle. So. I grabbed the flaming cardboard by the only corner that wasn’t on fire, threw it on the tile floor, and suffocated it with my water bottle. This time I made sure the damn thing was really out.

But now my non-smoking room is very smoky. So I open the window and put the burnt carcass of the cardboard on the sill. Hopefully it will air out enough before housekeeping comes in, but at least they will only think I was smoking in here…..because surely no one is dumb enough to start a fire in their room!