Boy, when household appliances go bad, or you start looking for new ones, you get some pretty interesting questions in your head. I learned this when my long-serving oven decided it had no interest fulfilling its mission anymore, and I had to go hunting for a replacement. Perplexing questions. Many like …
What do you do when you come home hungry, fire up your trusty oven and find it now emits sounds like a woodchipper? I mean, how did it even do that?!? It’s an oven! It emits HEAT. There shouldn’t be anything in it remotely capable of loud, scary noises, not to mention what sounds like it’s mauling a tree.
What do you do when everything you read online says this might mean your appliance is possessed, should be drenched in Holy Water and then dropped off a cliff? Which is quite different than the most do-it-yourself posts and videos. Online DIY articles are pretty optimistic. Bordering on fictional. You could have a washing machine catch on fire and burn itself to its feet, and some DIY-er would offer a solution involving a new actuator and premium appliance spray paint. But my problem seemed more dire.
What do you do when at heart you’re a DIY-er? Because my first instinct is: “Burned to its feet? I’m sure it just needs a new actuator and spray paint? It’s ‘go-time!’” I love a repair challenge. When all odds are against me. When even the parts supplier is like, “Dude! Seriously, don’t do this!! Save your money.” I love climbing deep into my machine, diagnosing the issue, ordering the wrong part three or four times, scratching the floor while pulling it out from the wall, stripping a tendon clean off the bone while trying to unfreeze a bolt, breaking three or four extra things in the process, and finally, after a titanic struggle, finding that – Eureka! – it still doesn’t work. But to throw in the towel before I even attempt a repair? That’s sacrilegious!
What do you do when you realize your appliance is actually 16 years old? A dinosaur in the world of modern appliances. Heat wasn’t even invented back then. You turned the oven to pre-heat and it handed you two sticks to rub together. Do you sink another dollar into an appliance that old? Knowing that the repair bill on the old timer could run a quarter the cost of a new stove? And the old coot could still kick the bucket tomorrow?
What do you do when you realize that today’s stoves are modern marvels with so many new settings and gadgets and extras that cooking will now be like grand science experiments? In fact, one stove I saw has an atom smasher connected to it, and comes with two scientists to record scientific data while you boil your pasta.
What do you do with an air fryer? I mean, seriously, what is that? They all come with them now it seems. How does it even work? Does an air fryer clog your arteries with hot air?
What kind of ridiculous world are we living in when a stove has a feature that allows you to knock twice on the viewing window to turn the oven light on? Actually, that one is pretty cool. I get up in the middle of the night just to play with it.
What kind of futuristic world are we living in when this is commonly heard in the house: “Hey Alexa, start pre-heating the oven so I can burn a frozen pizza”? Because apparently, although I’m only up to page 320 of instruction manual, my new stove can connect to WIFI, be controlled remotely and will even accept voice commands from virtual assistants like Alexa. This way I can remember to start the oven on the way home, even though I forgot to defrost the chicken.
What do you do when you’re convinced that your new stove is smarter than you? And laughing at you. And you think it’s plotting. Like in the movies. That you’re going to come home one day and find it’s stolen your family and tried to frame you for a murder that it actually committed. This new stove cannot be trusted!
What will the delivery guys think about the old stove they’re supposed to haul away? I mean, it’s pretty beaten up. Sixteen years will do that to an appliance. The glass stove surface is scorched like it survived orbital reentry from space. There are grease splatters and charred stalactites hanging down from the oven ceiling. And because my dog’s life apparently depends on shedding 17 pounds of fur a day, there is a bed of animal hair ringing the base like a hula skirt. Maybe this is why all the Internet advice suggests pushing the old one off a cliff?
And finally, what in the world will I do to keep the new one as pretty and shiny as the day we first got it? Because the stainless steel shimmers in the light. The glass looks like a freshly-Zambonied ice skating rink. And there isn’t a charred stalactite to be found. It’s so beautiful that I don’t even want to use it. Which is OK, actually, because while I pre-heated it on the way home, Alexa forgot to remind me to defrost the chicken.