Sticky Situation

I decided to clean out the cabinet earlier and get rid of some things that were out of date, like the jug of peanut oil that expired in 2006. There was an oversized candy cane that Asia got for Christmas in there, but it wouldn't budge. Upon further inspection, I discovered that a bottle of Hungry Jack pancake syrup had gotten turned over and spilled all over the back corner of the cabinet. Now, it is easy for stuff to get lost and overlooked in my little food cabinets because there really isn't a lot of room. I was standing in a chair to even see that. Considering this stuff had almost hardened, I'd say it'd been there a while. As it turned out, lots of things had syrup on it, but none were stuck like the candy cane. I called my mom (who didn't answer), my grandma (who didn't answer), and then my Nanny who answered and I asked her what to do about my sticky situation. She told me to use a hair dryer. The hair dryer helped enough to pry off the candy cane box. However, in the process of sending high speed hot air at sugary syrup, it blew a few of what I can only name Syrup Bubbles. I imagine that is what it must me like hand blowing sugar glass. After the mess it made, I would not want to ever try it on purpose. Then, I came up with a completely "brilliant" plan. I wet a dish towel and put it on top of the syrup. Then, I got my iron and cranked it up as high as it would go and tapped it on the wet towel. In a matter of seconds I smelled burning syrup and smoke was billowing out of the cabinet so thick that I couldn't even see into it. Fortunately, most of the syrup came up, the rag was not burned, and the cabinet was not on fire. The iron however had gotten syrup in the little steam holes. I did not know it would evaporate through the towel and into the iron; I swear! I used more of my "brilliance" to determine that if the iron was already ruined I might as well go for round two and get the rest of the syrup up. The same thing happened as in the first go-round and the rest of the syrup came up leaving the cabinet clean as if nothing had ever been there. My kitchen is still a little smoky and I think the syrup odor has permeated everything in my kitchen and living room. I learned two lessons from this: 1: This is a great way to get up hardened syrup and 2: This is a great way to ruin your iron. The moral for you is: If you come to my house this weekend and smell syrup, don't assume that I am making you pancakes.