Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and Bacy! (Or is it spelled Baky?)

This may sound like an April Fool, since it involves getting up early and cooking, two things I rarely do. But I promise, this really did happen this morning.

Last night I passed out early as I was surfing the net and woke up around 5:30 a.m. I thought about going back to sleep for another hour and a half, but I was hungry. Normally I go out for breakfast if I'm up this early , but I'm trying to save money. I had eggs and bacon leftover from Jules' visit and a relatively clean skillet, so I decided to make eggs and bacon.

I decided I would save time and dishes by cooking the bacon first, then cooking the eggs in the leftover grease.

I put two strips of bacon in the skillet and turned on the stove. It looked like it was going to take a while, so I decided to check my Google Reader while it cooked.

A few minutes later, I came back to the kitchen to find the skillet smoking. I ran and took the bacon off the heat. The bacon had disappeared, except for a couple of tiny pieces at the end. I reasoned that this bacon must have been particularly fatty, and all the fat had burned off, except these tiny end pieces. (Keep in mind, it's not 6 a.m. yet.)

I took a closer look and realized the bacon was so burnt that it blended in with the black skillet.

That's when the smoke alarm went off.

The ceiling in the living room must be lower than the one in the bedroom, because I could reach it without piling books on the chair. But it was still hard to reach. I kept pushing both of the buttons, but it was still going off. I tried to twist off the cover so I could remove the battery, but I only managed to pull it out of the ceiling so it hung from a wire.

At this point, the alarm is still going off.

Finally, the whole alarm came out of the ceiling, and stopped beeping.

I returned to the kitchen and scraped the burnt bacon and grease down the garbage disposal. I know this is bad for the garbage disposal, but that's what Liquid Plumber is for. I considered trying to cook with it again, but I decided to rinse it off and spray it with Power Dissolver instead.

I decided to try again. I have one more, very small, very cheap, skillet. I put in two more strips of bacon started cooking.

I turned on the fan over the stove, but I realized that the fan didn't actually vent fumes outside. It only circulates them around the room. (I've seen this in other crappy apartments.)

Back to the second round of bacon, I didn't dare leave it. But I started to get antsy. The grease was pooling and popping and it still looked raw. I was worried that I would repeat what happened with the first batch of bacon, so I took the strips out of the skillet and put them on a paper plate to finish cooking in the microwave. This is the way I made bacon when I was growing up. And I know the microwave takes a while, so I figured two minutes would be good for partially cooked bacon.

I drained off some of the grease and scrambled eggs without incident. Once the eggs were done, I opened the microwave and discovered two burnt (but not as burnt as before) strips of bacon.

I considered eating the burnt bacon, and I considered making more bacon. But instead I just threw it away and had my eggs with a tortilla and some cheese. (BTW- the bacon grease did add flavor to the eggs.)

After breakfast, I wrestled the smoke alarm. Somehow I managed to get it back in the ceiling. It beeps, so I know it still works.

By this point I had been awake an hour, but it felt like I'd been up all night, the apartment smelled (and still smells) like burnt bacon, but still hadn't eaten any bacon.

I should have had cereal.