<human>: Provide a brief overview of the text.

For a long time, I didn't have any baking soda. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to clean some old jewelry and bought a box (by the way, baking soda + aluminum foil + hot water is amazing at cleaning silver). And if I hadn't, well, I'm not sure what I would have done when the stove caught fire. I'm not one of those people with a fire extinguisher, and it was a decent amount of fire. Coming out from under the pan of boiling water on all sides, one of four boiling pans of water on the stove (the sink was clogged. it's that kind of Tuesday). And it is an electric stove, so water wouldn't have been the answer (right?). I don't know what the answer would have been! 

By the way, you should probably go check if you have baking soda, because trust me, when you need it, it's just fucking awesome to have it *right there*. 

So my first reaction, upon learning the stove was on fire, was to look at it very closely and see if it was going to maybe just stop, but no, it was serious about burning. I grabbed the jar of baking soda (I put everything in jars, I fucking love jars) and I flung it clumsily near the flames. Well, first I opened the jar, then I flung the baking soda. Clumsily. Flames still crackling merrily. I reached over and nudged the chunks of baking soda under the pan, all the way around, and the flames sputtered and went out. It was just that easy, such a potentially really bad thing completely neutralized. And it was probably the most pleasant mess I've ever cleaned up afterward.   This all took about 30 seconds or so, and I was perfectly calm because I knew I had baking soda. 

It gets better though. TIL that there is an "under the stove" and I don't think anyone ever cleaned under there. EVER. Holy shit, y'all. So, you know, if I hadn't had baking soda *rightfuckingthere*, I am fairly sure **all that grease** would have caught fire and ... well, I don't really want to finish that thought.
<bot>: At no point during the fire did my unemployed adult son even glance up from his laptop. I guess he's really confident in my abilities to handle housefires?