Having met Jess briefly, I completely believe this.  Now, on to the critique.

I realize this is a retelling of a real story, but the pace is a bit whacky.  You do leave from the telling of the story in one spot to give some ancedotes about Jess.  This would work well if you just gave the background on her first and foremost, otherwise it feels as though its jumbled.

There are also a considerable amount of run-on sentences.  While this is free form, it would have a better pace to it if the structure adhered more to standard form.  These true stories are interesting to read, but they'd be even better if you put them in a writing style.  Don't have to go all out, adding dialogue specifics, but it'd be a boon to the work.

I look forward to more "Life of Ashley" tales.

 bwaaa!! cute story, and i can just imagine the look on poor jessica's face when she realized.

yes, please keep entertaining us with "life of ashley" stories!

Of course, for those of us dead set on actually destroying that microwave, I recommend the tried and true method: 2 friends + 6 bottles of Carlos Rossi chardonnay + 5 gallons of gasoline + infinite boredom + a baseball bat - 3 days and nights worth of sleep = how to destroy a microwave.  But other than that, funny story.  I dig it.

Critique:

This is a fairly good piece of short nonfiction, but there are a few problems that I’d like to address, most of which are quasi-line-level in nature (I’ll ignore spelling mistakes, as I never find those kind of critiques helpful).  The first thing is, I don’t think the use of colons within the piece is working.  It disrupts the flow, and having one in the first line really jerks the reader’s mind.  The information is good, as it gives us requisite background on Jessica, and the voice comes through well. 

I’m unsure about the heavy use of dialogue from Jessica, as I am in all nonfiction, but especially because it doesn’t seem to “ring true” in the way that the rest of the piece does.  I’m not questioning the verisimilitude, and I’m not saying that the dialogue isn’t correct, but the way it works in the story simply doesn’t work.  I think a summary of the dialogue word work much better, specifically the omission of specific words like “billowing” or the specificity of the ordering of events.  Dialogue in nonfiction is a tricky thing, and I think it rarely works, and I think with the translation from sign language that it’s just too big a risk.  You’re asking the reader to accept too much, I think, and it’s a gamble.

The humor in the piece works really well, but I think that you need to play down how horrible it is that you make fun of her, since it’s not really that horrible.  I think the “Aboutness” of this piece is focused on treating people who are mentally disabled as if they were just people, because they *are* just people, and I think that should be played up more.

Hello Phedre/Ashley,

Thanks for joining the FFFF.  About your story, I really like the reality of it.  It's a simple real life incident that resonates in a way that most fiction and even non-fiction doesn't.  It's very down to earth without having really hi-stakes or melodrama.  This made it a real pleasure to read.  It's like literary candy, short and sweet.

As for big overall issues, I'm going to agree with Nickolas on the colons.  I don't quite think they're working.  Also, I'm fascinated by the sign language dialog.  It may not be something of interest to you, but as an outsider to that culture this story makes me very curious how it works and what it feels like to have a sign language conversation.  Since the story itself is about Jessica's failure to understand language, language itself is a central theme of the work.  I understand if you don't want the story to be about that.  It just happens to be where my curiosity led me.

The rundown:

First, let me give a little background on my friend, Jessica: She was born with certain problems, all of which contributed to her being mentally delayed & relegated to the special needs department at the local school for the deaf.

I'm very big on the importance of first and last lines.  I don't think this one quite works.  To use a genre term, it's an infodump.  "Here's everything you need to know to enjoy this story" instead of maybe showing us a typical day with Jessica.  I think it would be much better to portray her character than to talk about her labels.

(her favorite curseword is dumpass...it always cracks me up)

Very fun, telling detail.

... and I've started to freak out.

I think there is a tense problem here.  It should be "...and I started to freak out."

There's only about fifteen minutes left till class was over, and with her assurances that it could wait till I got home, I waited and prayed that she didn't somehow burn the house down.

Two things: 1. It's hard to believe that you wouldn't leave class 15 minutes early or that the professor would excuse you. 2.  Up to this point I don't think you've mentioned that Jessica is your roommate (or staying with you) which makes this bit confusing.

Jessica (this is edited only to put into proper English syntax for reading ease)

Here is where I think it would be more interesting to see it translated directly into English without the syntax.  Let us feel as confused about something we don't understand as Jessica felt about the directions.  This would also reinforce that whatever Jessica's shortcomings she is also bilingual, something few of us will ever be.

She got mad at me because I wasn't getting angry - though, I will admit I was laughing uproariously.

I find this idea interesting.  She got mad because you didn't.  Your more pleasant reaction didn't meet her expectations.  This is part of what makes this story so real.  This kind of thing happens often in real life, but rarely in fiction.

And yes, I still tease her about the microwave incident! She still rolls her eyes and tries to shrug it off. I'm so mean to her sometimes...

Another nice detail and, as Nickolas said, it reinforces the idea that everyone should be treated the same, which is a lovely message for this little piece.

Thank you for sharing this work.  I really enjoyed it and look forward to next week's contribution.  Keep Writing.

-Ben

This work was a little difficult for me to critique.  I'm not entirely sure what "kind" of work it's supposed to be (because I don't think it fits neatly into any specific category). 

the introductory sentence makes it sound as if you're giving a speech in a speech class. 

First, let me give a little background on My friend Jessica was born with certain problems, all of which contributed to her being mentally delayed & relegated to the special needs department at the local school for the deaf.

I think cutting out the "conversational" aspects of it would make it read more like a story, if that's how you want to make it read.

One night while I was at the local community college for my night class which ended at 9pm,  I got a frantic message on my Sidekick.  Apparently, she had started a small fire in the kitchen - the microwave was smoking like crazy... and I've started to freak out.  There's only about fifteen minutes left till class was over, and with her assurances that it could wait till I  got home,  I waited and prayed that she didn't somehow burn the house down.

Tense disagreement!  I'm also not sure you really need to mention when the class ends.

Once class was mercifully over, I pedaled furiously back home, and about fifteen minutes later I'm home, panting like mad, and relieved to see the house was intact and not burning down

A little more tense disagreement.

Jessica (this is edited only to put into proper English syntax for reading ease):  "I took the biscuits out of the box in the freezer, put them on the plate, set the microwave for ten minutes and went to my room.  Then I smelled smoke and ran out here and saw it was smoking, black smoke was just billowing out into the room... So I stopped the microwave and saw my biscuits completely blackened."

You could always not make it dialogue, but just explain what had happened instead.  The parenthetical aside is a little strange, in any case.  Even if it's edited that way, there's no real need to mention it.

This was a very amusing anecdote!  Nicely done.

I think that the story here is great. It's true, which is always a plus, and compelling: we feel bad for you, and for Jessica, and are amused by the mistake, relieved that it turned out okay, etc. But. And oh, there is a but. I know that this piece was not originally intended for FFFF, but just to bring the story across. That being said, it is written like a LiveJournal entry, or like you are speaking to someone on the phone. While in some contexts that can be made into a cute literary tool, this is not one of those cases, and it comes across as a lack of effort.

The best way to fix that kind of thing is to take all of the important points and the writing that you especially like in this draft and include them in a complete rewrite. I don't mean to sound completely down on this story, because I do very much like it. It's just that the writing is wrong for the audience.

If you do decide to rewrite this piece, I suggest that you include a lot more information about yourself. That would give the reader a better platform off of which to build the story. How did you meet Jessica? Why do you know sign language (are you deaf, or did you learn it in school)? Answering those questions would make the reader even more interested in what you have to say.

All in all, very cute story. Welcome to FFFF!

This piece, while non-fiction, had a colloquial tone: aka, it was as if you're speaking right to us, not as an omnipotent narrator who knows everything. The way to kill a microwave is by aluminum foil: never put foil into the device! (Learned that from Airplane!) And while it was humorous, you lacked umph and sincerity. I was funny, yes, but I feel it was rushed. You did a good job, though; hardly any grammatical errors, and it flowed smoothly. I would consider this "c-rated humor" (see Monty Python or Mark Twain). Very well done, I hope you continue to write, and if time permits me, I'll read your work in the future. Happy writing, and I hope you enjoy my works and return the favor.

I love the humor in this piece, and your tone works pretty well throughout in that respect. I do have to agree with Bob, however, when he suggests the first section of the story is pretty much an "info dump," something we as writers usually want to avoid. Instead, try beginning the story "at the point from which all other action flows," to quote Caro Clarke. Trust that your reader will recognize--in her actions and her dialogue--that Jessica is a bit slow.

A related issue I want to mention is the tendency here to "tell" rather than "show." While narration is a vital component of any story, we want to "show" our readers what's happening rather than simply telling them. I usually use the following analogy to illustrate my meaning: Imagine you're at the theater to watch a play, but rather than seeing any actors or sets or exchanges of dialog, a single gentleman steps onto the stage and proceeds to tell you about what's going on for two hours. Not very exciting, right?

Before worrying about grammar or sentence-level concerns, try to rewrite this as a scene rather than a narrative. Most importantly, don't get discouraged. Persistence pays off.