I’m generally a pretty optimistic person. Easily pleased and happily at the stage of life where I’m grateful for the little things. How little? Well, if I create a new password and I’m rewarded on the first try with “Strong!” my flippin’ day is made.
Despite this generally sunny outlook, I’m in a bit of a funk right now, my friends. Because apparently my gas range is plotting to kill me. Ditto my gas hot water heater, my gas furnace, my gas fireplace, my gas firepit…you get the idea. Man, I could use a password creation win right about now.
At this rate, only refrigerator is safe to hang out with although she’s not much fun since her well-lit innards are stuffed with stupid “low fat,” and “reduced sodium” crap for the new year. That didn’t sound very grateful and sunny, did it? Oh, shut up.
Apparently, refrigerator is playing the long game. She won’t kill me with COPD or chronic asthma like my many gas appliances, but she will slowly kill my spirit with all her “fresh vegetables” and “fruits not encased in pastry.”
Microwave is feeling pretty smug right about now, although he’s on shaky ground if you ask me. Anything that can do THAT to a rock-hard frozen burrito in ONE minute is more than a little “sus” as the kids say.
Toaster oven is guardedly optimistic about his future although he knows if air fryer is invited to the limited real estate that is the countertop he’ll most likely go the way of the thousand-pound KitchenAid mixer that now lives in the garden shed because it has a stronger subfloor. I know what you’re thinking. Gosh, aren’t you worried someone is now going to go into your shed and steal your Kitchen Aid mixer?
Let me respond. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If you’re strong enough to lift that beast, go for it. Word to the wise: You’ll need a bunch of chains, an industrial trailer hitch and your grandpa’s Chevy Silverado– the one with sufficient horsepower to pull down a good-size barn.
OK, enough insider kitchen humor. Back to the sad news the Consumer Product Safety Commission (motto: “The Only Good Trampoline is a Dead Trampoline”) has announced gas appliances, especially cookstoves, should be phased out because of their propensity to–even while not working–emit dangerous amounts of methane. If I was a less sophisticated humorist I’d use this precise moment to say something like: “That perfectly describes my newly retired husband” but that is what is known in the humor biz as “low hanging vegetables.” Or something like that.
The announcement did solve a mystery involving one of our more high-maintenance cats from several years back.
“Opal” had an unfortunate habit of jumping onto the gas stove and casually peeing into all five burners. A Google search confirmed the residual gas smell caused her to think the stove was also a litterbox and, therefore, the perfect place to do what comes naturally. Who wants pancakes?
I nearly committed cat-a-cide several times before learning this. But as George Santos once said, “When we know better, we do better” so I simply covered up the burners with a tasteful arrangement of EVERYTHING I COULD FIND IN THE HOUSE and the problem was solved. Eventually, Opal “crossed the rainbow bridge,” as bereaved owners write on Facebook when a pet dies. I just love that description of where our beloved gay animals spend eternity, don’t you? Don’t mind me. I got “methanebrainfog23!” Strong, right?