So today was “bring your child to work day” at work, and I brought my four year old daughter with me. We had fun, and she got to play with one of her friends that she met at a coworker’s daughter’s birthday party.
Anyway, after the morning’s events, everyone went to a pizza place down the street that has lots of games and stuff. I ordered our food and stood in line to get our drink cups filled. When it was my turn, I set my car keys down on the metal countertop. I filled my daughter’s cup first, then mine. It probably took all of one minute to do this. Then, I go to pick up my keys and immediately toss them back down, because they were SCALDING hot!!!
I kid you not. At first I thought maybe I had imagined it, so I picked them up again, but yep, they were definitely hot! I ended up getting some minor (well, superficial is more accurate) burns on two fingers, from my keyrings. I had to carry my keys to out table holding the plastic part of my car key and my gym membership badge to keep from getting more burns.
I didn’t go to the manager right away, i sat at our table contemplating what had happened, and was trying to figure out how it had even happened. I know the surface the keys sat upon was cool to the touch, I made sure to double check that before I left the counter with our drinks. They were at least 12 inches from the warming device that keeps the pizzas warm, and weren’t touching the soda dispensers either. The only thing I could think of that would do that SO quickly was maybe an exposed wire somewhere within either counter.
After my daughter’s kiddie pizza was done, and while we waited for it to cool off, I went up to let the manager know. He filled out an incident report, and kept asking if there was anything he could do or get for me. I was really less concerned about what was in it for me, and more concerned about it happening to anyone else, particularly any children. In the end I ended up with 20 free tokens and later, a certificate worth 500 tickets to trade for toys.
Later on in the evening after we got home, I decided I should probably see a doctor just to make sure it was just a contact heat burn and not an electrical burn. The doctor was also a little baffled at how it had happened, but said they were superficial heat burns, and that I only needed to use an ointment like Neosporin and bandaids until they healed up. Oh, and because for some reason “they” recommend getting a tetanus shot after burns, I was the lucky recipient of one of those too, since I have not had a tetanus shot since the one I got at 15 years old. Oh goodie. Achey arm, here I come.
Anyway, aside from the freak incident at the pizza parlor, it was a pretty good day. You can bet I won’t be setting my keys down on metal countertops anymore!
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