Cold War

It's funny that Shaz should mention her microwave/convection oven in the previous post's comments because one is going to feature in today's story. It goes thusly:

The building I work in is a former aircraft hangar dating from WWII and was converted into offices just after the war. It gets pretty draughty at times due to having a huge uninsulated roof space and suspended ceilings. Heating is in the form of ancient cast iron radiators that resemble dinosaur ribcages. Unfortunately the valve that controls the one in my office wrung off many moons ago and now I have to turn it on and off with the aid of an adjustable spanner - there is no middle ground, it's either on or off. It's such a palaver that usually I don't turn it on until it gets really cold and I make do with a little fan heater to take the chill off until I can stand the cold no more.

It's the same story for my Lt's office which is a windowless, airless room just off mine and the previous occupants have never actually felt the need to have their radiator on at all. However, my new Lt was stationed in Arizona previously where it gets pretty warm most of the time and she's been feeling the cold since moving over here so when she moved in she wanted her radiator on. And mine too!

Every morning I walk into my office and exclaim "bloody 'ell it's hot in here!" and proceed to turn on my fans while the Lt proceeds to combat the draught by turning on her portable air conditioning unit that doubles as a heater. This morning was no different, I walked in, said my piece at which the Commander appeared at his door (my office is at the centre of a suite of offices for the Command Section ... it's a glorified reception area and I'm prone to a lot of through traffic and have no privacy) to see what was going on.

I explained the situation to him and he went over to my radiator to try and turn it off but for some reason turning the valve one way made the radiator so incredibly hot it was like the surface of the Sun and we could barely get close enough to it to turn the valve the other way. This didn't actually turn it off this time, merely turned the temperature down to blast furnace temperature.

Hurrumph.

Anyway, half an hour later this strange hot smell started to permeate the room and I began to worry that the heating was about to melt down like Chernobyl. The Commander came out of his office again and moaned at me for complaining about the heat and then putting on my fan heater. I told him that I hadn't at which point the Lt piped up and said that she was bakng cookies for everyone in her new microwave/convection oven. The Boss and I just looked at each other for a moment and then he went off for a meeting.

A few minutes later she emerged with a pile of cookies and said to me "Gosh I feel so bad, making you smell these baking when you aren't allowed to eat them". She swiftly flounced off to deliver said cookies to the rest of the staff.

My gast has rarely been so flabbered, how insensitive can you get? Shaz if you can tell me what you did to your oven I shall endeavour to do the same to the Lt's.