This is a very scary tale (for most homeowners) of how my appliances are completely uncooperative with me, and conspiring with each other.
About a decade ago, we replaced our old fridge with a newer, larger, and more energy efficient model. Knowing that the old one wasn't worth much, it became our "garage fridge". It got plugged in and utilized on occasion - when we had a party, or when I was doing holiday baking. Otherwise it just sat out there, with its door carefully taped open so it wouldn't grow mildew.
I was happy to see the old fridge leave my kitchen. It was too small and too noisy. It hummed loudly, and that wasn't all.
It intermittently meowed like a cat! Seriously - over the years we had that fridge, guests frequently asked if we had a cat.
"Nope", I'd say, "It's our fridge."
It was the weirdest thing ever. Guys in appliance stores laughed when I'd tell them how my fridge sounded like a cat. I began to tire of them looking at me oddly, and I gave up asking them about the noise.
I speculated that perhaps my fridge was possessed by the spirit of one of my former pets - maybe Fluffy, my childhood cat, who was devoted to me in spite of the fact that I didn't feed her enough, and who supplemented her diet with mice and birds. (I loved that cat - I just never read the instructions on the can about how much food she should get. I was just a kid, but I still feel guilty about that.) My next cat, Mitts, fared better on the food front, but perhaps the kitten I gave to an irresponsible friend (who dropped it off on the side of a country road when she tired of it) was haunting me? (Trust me - I was pretty upset with the friend, so I didn't think that haunting was justified.) Perhaps it was Bitts, Mitt's son - the runt of the litter who we kept, never dreaming he'd grow into a massive galoot with six claws on every paw, the result of a little inbreeding. Bitts was a real sweetheart - well fed, well loved - and not a likely candidate to possess a second-rate fridge.
For whatever reason, the fridge meowed like a cat. Or, I should say, it meows - present tense - like a cat.
You see, when we moved into our new/old house, we claimed the cat/fridge from our former garage and put it into service in our new kitchen. "Kitty" is a miserable, cat-in-heat kind of appliance, but she keeps our food cold and will have to do the job until we break down and buy some new appliances.
Our oven is an old one that got reused too. At the end of 2014 I was fed up with said oven, and penned the following -
Ode to My Oven
My oven, I fear is possessed.
It flicks on and off, off and on.
Its antics leave me quite distressed,
but soon enough "Spook" will be gone.
Its convect fan died long ago -
now thermostat's broken once more.
It needs exorcism I know -
this fact I just cannot ignore.
Be still, haunted oven so cursed.
Your time in my kitchen shall cease.
I've eaten your best and your worst -
and soon at the curb you'll find peace.
-Sharon Flood Kasenberg, Nov 8th, 2014
HA! So, let me tell you the story of my oven.
Have you ever purchased a lemon that was posing as an appliance? "Spook" was bad news almost from the get-go. Like a lot of men, he's always had a tendency to run hot and cold. His thermostat was replaced twice before I got fed up and just learned to compensate. Currently he's over-heating, so every recipe is baked at a considerably lower temperature. And for good measure, I set the timer for a shorter period of time than is suggested.
Oh - do let me tell you about my oven timer! You'd think a miserable beast like Spook would have a lovely loud voice, but nope - not the case at all. When the timer goes off I hear one polite little beeep that lasts about three seconds. If I'm not in the same room, the thing is pretty well useless.
Once upon a time, Spook was a convection oven, but after repairing that feature twice we figured we'd go back to doing things the old fashioned way.
In the winter of 2015, we began looking at replacements for our possessed oven. My younger son was newly-engaged, and it had been decided that I'd provide baked goods at his reception. Spook was just too unreliable to do the job, so off he went to the garage. I eagerly anticipated the day he'd make it the rest of the way to the curb, but it wasn't to be....
You see, we began talking about moving in a year or so, and even I had to admit that Spook was better than no stove at all. Thus we decided we'd keep him "just in case" we found a place with no appliances.
BINGO! Heck, when we bought our new/old home, it didn't even have a kitchen, so "Spook and Kitty" have each received a reprieve from the scrap heap, and live on in my current kitchen.
Yes, I've learned to work around their eerie peculiarities. I put up with the meowing, and the flicking, and the lack of convection fan, and the practically useless timer... And frankly, old Spook and I churn out some pretty decent baking!
The biggest problem is that I fear the two of them have incited a rebellion in my kitchen. My microwave and toaster don't co-operate with each other at all, and somebody always trips a breaker when they inadvertently get turned on at the same time. (Warm the soup, then put in the toast!) Don't get me started on Tim the Toaster - he's a pretty useless tool too. He burns every second piece of bread he's given, and leaves the alternate slice untoasted. Fickle as they come!
The scariest part of this story is that my appliances are all in league with each other to drive me insane before we break the bank and buy new ones.
Kitty lets out a purring laugh when Spook burns the brownies. Spook gives an approving flick every time she yowls like a she-cat getting some action. They've created a rift between the toaster and the microwave that only a certified electrician can resolve (love ya, Ron Lockie!), and I'm betting that they both put my treadmill up to calling me "Trufflebutt"!
Sometimes a girl just can't catch a break.
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