This summer is no different, except we also have people coming over tomorrow, the second day of summer break. For me, cleaning went into overdrive. For Big Daddy, projects that had been put off had to be finished. We couldn't let people see that we live like this.
Years ago, we needed a new stove. We were stretched tight on money, and I wanted a really nice stainless steel fronted stove. Big Daddy gave me a budget of 500 dollars. I took my five hundred dollars and stood in line for 10 hours to get 2 Wii the night they came out. The next day I sold them both on Ebay for triple the money.
Then I bought my dream stove.
About a year later, the light bulb in my oven went out, because Big Daddy loves nothing more than to sit on the floor in front of the oven and watch the cheese melt and bubble on his homemade pizzas. It's almost like an obsession and can keep him entertained for hours. I know. I know. It's weird, but it keeps him happy.
Unfortunately after watching Pizza-TV, he never remembers to turn out the light, so my light bulb burned out months after I got my stove.
It seems like just yesterday, but it was five years ago.
Five. Years. Ago.
At various points, I've asked for it to be replaced, and I was always put off. This year for Mother's Day, I asked for two things: the shelves that I've had since Thanksgiving to be put up and the dang light in the oven to be replaced.
I'm sure I'm the only one who asks for those kind of gifts, right?
Today, praise be to the great god of fancy general electric stoves, is the day the light bulb was replaced. It cost three bucks and ten minutes of time, and Big Daddy had a happy wife. You know what they say. "Happy wife, happy life." Big Daddy was all smiles after he finished the chore and went to read the newspaper.
Actually turning on the light, however, illustrated how absolutely freaking disgusting that oven was.
No worries, I thought to myself. I have a self-cleaning feature on my fancy-schmancy oven. I locked the door on that bad boy and programmed it for the lowest level of self-cleaning, four hours and twenty minutes, rationalizing that we could always go back for more if it was still nasty.
Those of you who have used the self-cleaning feature before know how badly it smells. We were about 15 minutes in, when we began to talk about going to the movies to get away from the smell.
Eighteen minutes in, The Kid wandered into the kitchen to make a sandwich for lunch.
"Mom?" she said in a tremulous voice. "There's a fire in the oven."
"A fire?" I ask, already moving toward the kitchen.
"Yep, a real fire. Like with flames and everything," she affirmed.
There in stark relief to the inky blackness of the oven window was a fire with flames about a foot tall. It reminded me of campfires at night, licking at the sky, wild and free. Beautiful, in a stone firepit in the mountains.
Not as beautiful in my kitchen.
Big Daddy came rushing in behind me. I wish I remember exactly what I said. A la Sweet Brown, it would have been funny to have said, "Oh, Lawd Jesus, it's a fahre" and then followed it up with "Ain't nobody got time for that", but I was too worried about my house burning down to be funny.
I do remember immediately turning off the self-cleaning cycle, trying to unlock the door, and Big Daddy screaming, "No!"
I remember asking if we should call the fire department, and Big Daddy again telling me no.
Then, with nothing else to do, we just stood around in a loose circle in front of the stove watching the flames flicker and dance.
It's seemed like a good plan at the time, and it's always important to have a plan in case of emergency.
Now that I had a plan, I watched the flames more closely. Where they taller? Where they spreading?
Thankfully, the answer was no.
I'm glad to say, that eventually, after several minutes, the fire burned itself out.
Sadly, there's a safety lock on the oven door. I can't open it until the oven gets to a certain "safe" temperature. With my new light bulb, I can't see anything through the brownish, smoky haze of the glass.
At least I hope it's haze and not actually what my oven looks like. It's gonna stink if that three dollar light bulb turns into a thousand dollar new stove. Can you imagine how hard Big Daddy would be to live with?
"If I hadn't changed the bulb, you wouldn't have turned on the self-cleaning. Without the self-cleaning, there wouldn't have been a fire. Without the fire...."
It'll be like the worst version of If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, ever.
Meanwhile, I'm listening closely. God speaks to some people with a burning bush. Me? He used a a burning stove.
Obviously, He doesn't want me to clean today.
I have *so* gotten the message. Think I'll read a book and put my feet up. Or maybe catch that movie.
Matter of fact, I may never clean again.
No comments:
Post a Comment