The
TV sitcom struck a chord with me straight away, partly because it suits
my sense of humor, and partly because - in the early days - Frankie Muñiz
and Erik Per Sullivan lived in my building, and they are both really nice
guys. The fame will inevitably go to their head but at least I knew
them when they were nice kids :)
Some of the events in
this episode came out of personal experience. The best advice is:
write what you know - so I wrote what I knew.
Sesame seed baps gave
me the most unpleasant experience when I tried thawing a couple in my microwave,
just as my landlady asked me to do a tiny chore for her. I put the
microwave on for about 5 minutes (the smallest setting on my cheapo model),
intending to stop the process after 30 seconds.
The chore took longer
than I thought it would, and when I returned, the microwave had stopped.
I couldn't see a thing inside - it was all grey and smokey - so I did the
daft thing and opened the door.
Worst thing I ever did.
The smoke was like tear gas, blinding me instantly and making me choke
uncontrollably. I stumbled out of the room, washed my eyes in the
bathroom sink, then ventured back inside my room.
There wasn't a huge amount
of smoke, but what there was made me gag and my eyes water. I opened
the windows (and this was in Winter in Oxford) and let the fresh air do
its job.
That job took almost
twelve hours...
The stink took days to
go, despite cans of air freshener and lots of time spent with a howling
gale blasting in from outside.
The atomic absorption
spectrophotometer? I used to work with them, and although I never
set fire to one, I knew people who did...
The rest of the incidents
arose out of the knowledge I have of the characters by 2001 (they changed,
not always for the better) and some more "What if...?" thinking on my part. |