We all crouched around the open oven like it was a crime scene. Inside was a small object, roughly thumb-sized — strangely smooth in some areas, jagged in others — with a thin metal core running through it.
At first, nobody could agree on what it was. Someone suggested a piece of a crashed drone. Another thought it might be broken glass from a dish. But the longer we looked, the more unsettling it became: whatever it was, it had clearly been through extreme heat and come out transformed.
It wasn’t until we noticed the twisted remnants of an ignition wheel that everything fell into place — a disposable lighter. Somehow it had been left in the oven, buried with trays and forgotten before Thanksgiving cooking began.
The heat had melted the plastic into a distorted shell, leaving only the metal frame behind. The realization hit all at once: it could have easily ignited or exploded.
We laughed about it later, but since then, checking the oven before big meals has become a habit none of us skip.
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