Mad Stove Disease

This was the only time I pulled the camera from my hip and took a snap. It shows the kitchen of my home piled high with the disassembled parts of the 40-year old stove.

The oven has not worked for over 2 years now, and even though an almost new, intact, hardly-used stove which was obtained as a gift by me, is sitting in the living room, my housemate-landlord insists upon repairing this one. The manufacturer Caloric went under in the late 1970s.

I moved the appliance out of its niche and cleaned all around it. The floor beneath had not been cleaned in 19 years. Then, while looking over the unit to find the thermostat and the transformer (which we want to replace), the flexible gas line (bottom of picture) broke.

I gave a yell and ran to the basement, shutting off the gas, but it was only the beginning of the adventure. Rich came home at 5 a.m. and we argued about stoves, the sovereignty of homeowners over stove decisions, and a few other areas of deep philosophy that we've already been over a few times during the 23 years we've known each other.

The time lapse between my first moving the stove and when it was all back together, with the new gas line and its thermostat removed, was about 14 hours, which led to my missing a night's sleep entirely.

Now the oven still doesn't work but the matter of "sorry, can't roast a duck" has been scooched just a little bit forward, hopefully toward the day when I can cook (or attempt to cook) like a civilized person and not feel like a lousy toad next time Ceridwen comes to visit.

Some time I'll have to tell my old scooch story. Good word, that.