Stupid Human Tricks

Some days, I tell ya.

I wanted to get into the inner workings of our oven this morning, because I wanted to make sure the flame is adjusted properly. I took the door off, removed the grates, took the bottom off the oven, etc. Cleaned out all the crud, checked the flame. Looked fine to me. I called a service/repair guy, confirmed some suspicions, and set to putting the whole mess back together.

The door would NOT go back on. Not. No.

I'm sure I've taken the door off the oven before. I never had problems getting it back on. I'm wrong on some part of that - either I've taken someone else's oven door off, or I've taken a different oven door off of a different stove we've owned, but I assure you, after today, that I've never removed this particular door.

After lots of pulling on the tightly spring-loaded (ow!) mechanism, lots of help from hubby (who would probably like some lunch, which I will be happy to bake just as soon as the door is back on the oven), removing other parts and pieces (ow!), prying with screwdrivers, trying some more (ow!), and having no luck, I see a little hole on the mechanism. I think if we can get something in there, it will hold the mechanism (ow!) in the open position. Hubby goes downstairs, comes back with allen wrenches, we proceed (ow!) and we get the door back on. Woo hoo! We put the glass back on the front, the sides back on the sides, the handle back on the top, the knob facing doohickey back where it goes, and our stove is once again our stove. I turn on the oven and put in the pan of lasagna.

Guess what hubby found in the warranty and manual file? A wee envelope with the words 'door removal pins' on it, and two little thingies to put in the holes that we found on that mechanism. Aha!

The lasagna has to bake a while, so I go downstairs and put in 15 minutes on the NordicTrac. Yay me! Now I'm all hot, so I take off my old crudly sweatshirt and put on my favorite dark blue v-neck cotton shirt that I think makes me look thin (or at least less fat).

Time to make garlic toast. Slice the bread, butter it. Land-o-Lakes Butter-Olive Oil Blend says 'keep refrigerated', which translates into 'too stiff to spread'. I put it in the microwave on the lowest setting (warm) for 10 seconds. Open the door, pull out the container - it has completely liquefied in that short time, so it sloshes all over my favorite dark blue v-neck cotton shirt that I think makes me look thin (or at least less fat). I'm guessing there's not enough spray-n-wash on the planet to get half a cup of butter out of a dark blue shirt...so now I look thin and...buttery. Mew.

Change for the second time in less than a minute, and continue with lunch, which actually turned out pretty good, all things considered.

The afternoon continued without mishap until I was clipping some coupons for a friend and managed to clip, well, me. Ow.

Later, after Little Bit was in bed, I was downstairs dressing up some home-canned jams and jellies for Christmas gifts, and managed to somehow tie my own finger AND the camera strap in the square knot. I blame the band-aid I was wearing to protect my clipped finger. I could not get it loose...and I couldn't get help, since hubby was at work and Little Bit was presumably asleep. I did eventually work myself free....then I fell up the stairs with six jars of home-canned jams and jellies. None of them broke, but I stubbed my toe.

Some days, I tell ya!

Comments

Vicki B. said…
"managed to somehow tie my own finger AND the camera strap in the square knot" that is hilarious and pop came out my nose, at work.
Auntie Marsha said…
Auntie Marsha from KY says hello. Learning to follow your blog s-l-o-w-l-y. remember, this IS West Ky. Anyhoo, all the stupid human tricks can be attributed to one thing, this month has two full moons, one on the 3rd, as you have learned, by the added clumsiness and stupidity, and one on the 30th, which actually allows you to say "once in a blue moon" (two in one calender month). so try to throw that into a conversation frequently, chickens and Mr. Morton would be good to try it out on.
SO as for:
1. You're really lucky the oven worked again.
2. Butter gremlins like to work that way.
3.Throw the blue shirt away.
Don't be like Grandma C. and try to frugal it.
4.Don't run OR clip with scissors during a full moon.
5.Never try to tie a bow between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's just not in our genes.
6.We are the ONLY family that can successfully fall UP stairs, but our lovely natural added padding, (which also makes us so hot, we run through the house stripping off layers of clothes after minimal physcal activity) usually saves most of the breakables.
So, LOVE to you and yours, give O. a great big KY hug and kiss, and enjoy your mountain retreat.
Hey, did I just do a Christmas greeting thingy?
XOXOXO, Auntie Marsha
Anonymous said…
Darlin' Daughter,

Do you remember when I made the bunny rabbit cake when we lived in Zion? You bake a 9x13 cake, trim 2 pieces about 1 1/2 inches wide across the narrow end, put them on for ears, then frost like a bunny face and put on coconut, jelly beans for eyes and mouth and licorice for whiskers.

That day, I mixed up a cake mix, put it in the oven, 25 minutes later, it was still batter. The oven had heated up, turned off and didn't turn back on because the thermocouple was shot. Dad and Don (his boss) went and got one and fixed it. Threw out that cake and mixed up another one.

This time it worked so well it sort of burned around the edges. SO----I opened a can of ready-made frosting (it was in a metal can in those days), sliced my thum to the bone and bled all over the kitchen, but not the cake!!!

Bud sent me to the clinic to get a tetanus shot. When I came back, the pieces for the ears had somehow shrunk to about 2 inches long, everybody claimed innocence, so I proceeded to make the ugliest and costliest bunny cake in history, plus, had a sore thumb for weeks and was REALLY mad at the cake and the grown men who I believe ate most of the ears or at least fed them to you kids.

Well, to make a long story longer, we ate the darned cake and I never made another bunny cake.

It just keeps on happening, doesn't it?

Love to all,
Granny Ladybug
Anonymous said…
Murphy's Law. Glad you got the door back on the oven and your lasagne was good.

Try dawn and a scrub brush on the sweater and washing on a long setting with hot water, if you shrink it, its ruined anyway. I spilled about half a bottle of cooking oil on my good jeans one year camping - then let them set a week until we got home. The oil came out with dawn and a hot wash.

Glad your jars did not break, that would have been a mess to clean up and probably some clean pants.

Take care,
Georgia
Amy Lynne said…
Poor thing...I hope the rest of the week is better for you!
Laura said…
Thank you all so much! Sorry about the pop up your nose, Vicki! Been there, done that! Aunt Marsha, I'm tickled that you're here! I hope I don't bore you to sleep! Mom, I don't remember that incident, or the cake, but we left Zion when I was 7, so maybe that's why?

I'm happy to report that the shirt looks possibly salvageable - Georgia is right about Dawn - that's my go-to for oily stains. I guess it makes sense that Dawn cleans up food stains well, considering it was made for washing dishes.

Comparatively, today was pretty uneventful, thank goodness!

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