4 4/8/2016
UWC-USA
PHILIP JAEGGI-WONG ‘17
MONTEZUMA, NM — With excitement high regarding the recent readdition of stoves to dayrooms on the UWC-USA campus, one of the most essential rules of their use has been disregarded in the past few days: that along with the stove vent, the stove light must—must—be switched on whenever the stove is in use. This rule is so necessary that in reality the two switches used to regulate these functions should be made into one, as students are indoctrinated with the notion that they always be switched on and off in tandem. However, this weekend saw the occurrence of a near-disaster when a Denali boy neglected to turn on both switches while using the stove. With only the bright fluorescent lights of the dayroom to guide him, it was only a matter of time before the boy made an enormous mistake that led to what the fire department would have classified as a ‘raging inferno’. Unable to use the full capacity of his retinal cones, the D boy mistook the flat-top stove for a countertop—which is quite understandable, as these two things are in no way distinguishable except by means of a designated stove light.
“Anyone would have made the same mistake,” says a fellow dormmate. “Sometimes, when the stove light is off, I think that the table is a sofa.” Others attest to the fact that while they always remember to turn on the vent, the stove light is a different story. “It just never seems necessary,” one student stated. “It’s hard to realize that you can’t see things like that,” says one Kili girl. “I mean, it’s like...you can’t know what you don’t know.” For this boy, forgetting to turn on the stove light and mistaking the stove for a counter led to him to place his roll of paper towels on the stove top, which of course then caught fire. Luckily a friend who was in the room saw it before it was too late. Following procedure, this friend quickly turned on the stove light and then ran to get the fire extinguisher. He managed to put out the fire in a timely fashion. No one was harmed and there was minimal damage to property. Perhaps these boys will have learned their lesson and serve as an example for the rest of the student body.