scoffing the humble pie

Did I ever tell you about the time I learnt how sticky humble pie can be?

This was years ago, I was at work (in an old office) where we didn't have a kettle, so making a cup of tea required boiling a cup of water in the microwave oven. Not uncommonly, someone had left their forgotten cup inside the microwave. As I went to lift it out, the whole microwave plate came out with it. My boss had a habit of adding honey to the water before he boiled it, but then left the microwave on so long that the honey-water (like French nuclear tests in the Pacific) exploded all over the inside of the oven, all the water had disappeared, leaving the cup strongly glued with radioactive super-powered honey to the microwave plate.

(At this point I'll just point out that I don't work at Myth Busters).

I tugged and tugged, but couldn't get them separated. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and I was growing more and more annoyed as I wrestled with what looked like an unimaginative contemporary sculpture. My patience wained. I precociously stood there waved the contraption above my head, caught every ones attention in the office, and called-out something oh-so witty that now escapes my memory, (probably something like "So who's the genius honey bandit, eh?!").

I'm not sure I even finished my sharp-tongued repartee before there was a strange sound (like a drawn out fake armpit fart), the honey lost it's battle with gravity and the plate came unstuck.
With one hand still waving the cup high in the air, I fumbled to catch the falling plate with the other.

The guys in the office, who had only just turned around to see me drop something from above my head, smear myself in honey as I juggled to catch it, and then have it smash to the ground and shatter into a kazillion tiny pieces, must have been wondering what the in the name of slapstick-stooges was going on.

The whole scene ended with me contemplating one of my top most embarrassing moments, while painstakingly trying to pick up the kazillion tiny pieces of honey-smothered glass, (which had now miraculously regained it's super-powered adhesive strength). Arghh.

Although to this very day I still get twitchy in the company of a microwave oven, I am lucky to report no long term effects have hindered my love for honey or tea!