honey, i blew up the oven.

That's right. It's OVER. Many of you know that we did a very 'cosmetic' overhaul of the house when we bought it two years ago. While the kitchen benefited from a few gallons of paint and a new fridge; the old oven, cook top & hood have remained intact. The new decor doesn't lend itself quite as well to the retro doo-doo brown color of these appliances, but they have worked just fine for what they were intended to do: cook food. I had hoped the end would come for the hood/cook top before the oven. But as usual, i was in for a surprise.

Here's how it went down.

Last week Floyd & I were about to enjoy an evening walk around the neighborhood with the boy and Jim Hargate, III. I asked him to "put the rotisserie chicken in the oven on WARM so that it will be ready to eat when we get home." (Sidenote: yes, i have resumed some cooking, but seriously, after 9 hrs at the office all day, it ain't happening. we take what we can get. and a $4.99 chicken at Costco is just fine with me.) Floyd did as was instructed, and we all went outside. After throwing the ball in the yard for JH, i realized i had forgotten something and needed to run back in. That was the MIRACLE of this whole debacle. I re-entered the house, full of black smoke, flames blazing from our oven. It seems that Floyd had accidentally put the oven on BROIL, instead of warm. (The two settings are right next to each other on our old fashioned dial. It was an honest mistake). The grease & plastic fire was quite a sight.

Now here's Evelyn's mistake: After turning the oven off and opening the windows/turning attic fan on, etc... i ran back outside and told Floyd we had some bad news, there would be no chicken for dinner. After brief explanation of situation inside, he asks, "What did you do with the chicken?" - Reply: "It's still in the oven." Floyd runs back in to find flames STILL blazing inside the oven.

So... WHAT DID WE ALL LEARN?

I got a great education on the difference between electric fires and grease fires.
Floyd got a great education on the difference between the broil setting and the warm setting on the wonky oven dial.
The oven got a one way ticket to the dump, and our spiffy new General Electric addition will be arriving Tuesday.

the end.