Julia Child I am not!

So we were chatting last night at knitting group and I was killing myself laughing about a couple funny baking stories-someone had lit a paper towel on fire trying to pick up something in the oven (yes, she agreed that she is truly an engineer) and someone else had put a hot 8x11 pan on a cork hotpad when she was checking it and then threw it back into the oven and had cooked cork. I was thinking about some of my less-than-successful cooking experiments after I got home. There was the time when I burnt some popcorn when I was trying to show my brother how to pop popcorn on the stove. It's so much better after all... except for the black smoke that emerged and could be seen all the way down the back alley when my parents were driving home. But I was only 14 at the time. My brother wisely bought me a popcorn popper for my high school grad gift. I only use that one... fifteen years later it's still a favorite appliance. I have seen people light popcorn on fire in the microwave so I don't believe in my popping skills there. So... I was feeling pretty happy that I hadn't had any knitting-group-esque cooking escapades. I was making pulled pork sandwiches today in my beloved new crock pot for good friends. I looked all through the house for the directions for my new crock pot but realized that I had thrown them out along with the box when I went on a recycling cleaning fury last week. I work today, I make two lovely salads, go for a skate (we won't talk about my wipeout) and am pulling out the pot out of the slow cooker appliance and what do I see? The directions for my slow cooker. I COOKED my directions between the crockery and the appliance. (No one was hurt in the development of this story but please do not try this at home...) Somehow the burnt cork hotpad doesn't look all that wierd now... who cooks INSTRUCTIONS?