And even after replacing the hot water bottle 4 times - it still happened.

I give up.

(and it is not the stopper either!)

janie's heating-pad mishap could have been worse...

I had a friend who once had an iguana named "Sidney". I'm not much for reptiles, though I got semi-used to this lizard and now and then I'd get close enough to scratch him behind the ears or on his chin like one would a cat or a puppy.

Well, reptiles, being cold-blooded dessert/jungle creatures and loving the heat, Sidney had this electric "rock" that Liz would plug in like a heating pad... it would get warm- there were different settings, and the lizard LOVED the warmth it provided and was ALWAYS laying on that damned thing- looking almost dead- (but it was a "happy" dead!)

Anyway, one winter there was a blizzard and Liz was going away for the weekend so she puts out a few days worth of food and water, and since it was cold and snowy out, she adjusted the heat on Sidney's electric rock up a notch or two to make sure he didn't freeze into a lizard-popsickle while she was away.

She returned home after several days to find that lizard's normally pale-butter-colored belly was now the color of BURNED TOAST due to this lame animal digging the excessive heat that rock put out- he laid down on it and never left it! Damn thing was enjoying the helll outta being cooked to medium-rare! Sheesh! Liz took him to the vet and the doc pronounced Sidney fine and fit as a fiddle!

Im so sorry about Sidney!
We have had friends who have had the opposite. Their heating lamps fail and they loose the reptile to cold. Personally Im not a reptile fan.
THere was a guy living in the next apartment who they found after the fact had been keeping poison snakes in his apartment. He had his entire closet painted black and had his aquariums in there. This guy had been bitten by some tree vyper he had years before and almost died. They had to airlift antivenom from the nearest zoo to save him and he still collects these things.
Scared the crap out of me cause his closet was on the same wall as our bed. If one of those things had gotten loose where do you think it would have went?? Right to the pet rabbit in the next apartment and the bite size dog. Im sorry but I do not want any pet in my house that can end my life or looks at me as lunch.
A couple of years later the same guy had a cobra get loose and it got under their house. Luckily it was winter. They never found it and assumed it died in the cold. This nut lived beside of us for a year! They had a pic posted on their site of a albino cobra in the center of their livingroom loose and their three year old son over in the corner. They are nuts.
I had words with him later when he laughingly joked about feeding screaming rabbits to his snakes. I used some words on him I havent had to use since:mad:

Jeez-of-Pete, janie... I'm sorry but those kinds of folks are just too freaky! Ick! I could never have a pet that I was afraid to touch- much less one that had visions of sugar-plums dancing in its head whenever it looked at me! Yikes & YOWZA!

A friend who bar-tended at a restaurant I worked at years ago had a college-aged son living with her- he and his pet BOA. Well, one day his boa comes up MISSING, but in order not to freak his Mom totally out, he decides not to tell her! He never found his pet snake so he assumed it got out and was loose somewhere in the countryside- long gone. Well, one day weeks later there's this AWFUL stink in the basement. They search everywhere and clean like mad trying to get rid of the stench! Well, as it turns out, a contractor removed a ceiling tile down there and guess what falls to the floor? A dead and rotting coiled-up snake! Must have been sick or some such and gotten up in the ceiling to quietly die. AGGGHHH!!! Gawd almighty- makes me feel like I need a shower just thinking about it!