No doubt the title to this blog entry has piqued your curiosity. What you're about to read is offered based upon experience. I highly recommend that you take this advice to heart, as it could potentially save your life. Unless you're a trained professional, don't try this at home. (I am not trained, nor am I a professional; the fact that I did this anyway should serve not as inspiration, but as a warning for you not to follow in my footsteps.) For your convenience, I have broken these instructions down into a series of steps.
How to test if your smoke detector is working properly
- Buy cheap, really greasy breaded fish* from the store.
- Preheat oven and place fish inside when ready.
- When smell of smoke meets nostrils (note: this probably happens about when smoke starts getting into eyes, causing them to burn), proceed to open window to help vent area.**
- Realize that window is not enough, so open door.
- Try frantically to grab smoke with bare hands and push it out the door.***
- Allow reality to sink in.
- Slowly stop crazed activity, and prepare to hear loud fucking beeps.
- Jump in surprise when smoke detector starts its siren song.
- Climb on chair to stop beeping smoke detector.
- Open oven, get blasted by smoke, and pull fish out, deciding that fish is, in all likelihood, done cooking.****
*These steps were written precisely, and only after first researching this method (albeit unintentionally). Chances are that a variety of other fantastically greasy foods would suffice.
**Opening a window before actually starting to cook will decrease the likelihood that the smoke detector will go off, thereby completely missing the point.
***Smoke, being of a gaseous nature, cannot be grabbed. It slips through the hands, thus making the grabbing of smoke a bitterly frustrating endeavor.
****This incredible procedure was devised after my recent Saturday night cooking escapade, which involved both cooking fish and setting off the smoke detector as a result. And yes, the fish was indeed done cooking, and to top it off, with the addition of tartar sauce, the fish wasn't half bad.