Strange but true

If you click on the pop-up for old lady who microwaved her pet at snopes.com, you'll find stories of accidentally cooked pets. Snopes lists the origin and validity of the story as undetermined. I, however, do know someone who accidentally cooked a cat themselves. This is no foaf, I saw the cat after, which miraculously lived. A friend of mine in high school lived in a family with many cats. On day, her aunt pre-heated either the over or the broiler, I forget which one, and went about her business. Shortly thereafter, she heard a cat screeching, and figured the cat had gotten locked into a kitchen cabinet, washer, dryer, etc., and began opening all the doors and drawers in the kitchen looking for the cat. Finally she noticed a buring smell and put two and two together, and opened the oven, and the cat leaped out. Most of its fur was cinged off, it was missing its whiskers, I believe its ears and tail were a little messed up, and the cat never acted quite right again, but they took it to the vet, and it did live. I saw the cat myself after. This true story does have some parallels with the ones circulating also. It was a woman who cooked the cat, and my friend lived with her single mother and several single aunts, paralleling the woman alone motif. Maybe it's just always a woman in the story because men are less likely to actually cook something?