August 2025
Now, I know you’re all very interested in finding out about my daughter and the man she loves, but first… I have to tell you about the oven.
To begin with, her name was Bertha. Did I ever tell you the oven’s name was Bertha?
Probably not; what would have prompted me to do so?
Anyway, not important. The important part that I must stress to you is that I wasn’t even cooking.
Or what I mean to say is, the oven was no longer on.
Had not been on for a good fifteen minutes.
But Bertha got hot and stayed hot for a bit, so I suspect that’s why I called her Bertha.
And I know that makes zero sense, but it’s a thing.
I texted my husband: The oven exploded and I almost lost my face.
Now, I was a little surprised that there was no immediate text back. So I texted and asked him if he even liked my face. Was that ridiculous? Yes. Was I still in a bit of shock? Yes again.
Moments later he came back with: Of course I like your face!
I was happy to hear it.
Immediately I got another text: Which one? The standing or the stack?
The thing is, at the end of the kitchen on the right, if you’re walking in from the garage, there are two ovens stacked on top of one another.
The top one is a microwave—which we’ve replaced twice—and the bottom is a regular oven with warming drawers underneath.
Sam and I had those put in when we bought the house from Dane all those years ago.
We had to, as I needed two ovens and we needed a microwave.
Originally, Dane didn’t like—and still doesn’t, in his home or any others—the over-the-range microwave vent.
He doesn’t think, no matter what anyone says, that they provide enough aeration.
So he had that all removed and replaced it with a fancy under-cabinet copper range hood.
In his defense, it does work really well.
But Dane did not replace Bertha, who had come with the house when he bought it.
As he never lived in the house, he had no idea that she had a funky handle. More on this later.
I sent back to my husband: Bertha is dead.
At which point he called me. “What are you talking about?”
“Bertha.”
“Oh, the stove,” he said.
“She’s a stove, range, whatever, on top and an oven underneath.”
“Yes, you’re right. Sorry.”
I was quiet a moment.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m outside in the yard.”
“Why?”
I thought I’d made that clear. “The oven exploded and I almost lost my face.”
“Start from the beginning.”
“Wait, I have to say something to the firemen.”
“There are firemen there?”
“What part of the oven exploded did you miss?” I snapped at him, which was bad. “I didn’t mean to growl at you. I’m just a bit freaked out. I’ll be right back.”
The firemen asked me if I wanted the oven in the house or out, and I asked them if they would please take Bertha to the curb, and without even questioning me, they said of course.
I have always loved firemen. They’re always there to help.
You never hear of anyone protesting them, and they pull kittens from trees, for goodness’ sake.
I moved then and took a seat on the steps leading down from my back deck to the yard and resumed my conversation with my husband.
“Okay, I’m here,” I reported.
“Tell me from the beginning.”
“You don’t want to hear it from the start. You always get exasperated.”
“I do not.”
“Liar.”
“Fine. I won’t get exasperated, just tell me.”
“You already sound annoyed.”
“Please. I’m begging you. Just tell me.”
“All of it or the condensed version?” I asked him.
“What is the condensed version?”
“That the oven exploded and I almost lost my face.” I replied drolly.
“Yeah, no, not gonna work. Tell me from the beginning.”
“Okay, so basically I had just made a buttermilk pie––”
“I want you to get there faster.”
“That’s not how I do things, and you know this, and you said you wanted to hear it all.”
Long-suffering sigh. “I know. I’m sorry. G’head.”
“Where are you? It sounds weird.”
“I’m in the car, of course, on my way home.”
“I’m not unhappy about that, because it kind of scared me.”
“I know. Now tell me.”
“As I said, I had just made a buttermilk pie, and I turned the oven off. So the oven was indeed off. I need to make that clear. But I was wearing my ice neck thing, you know, the ring I wear to keep myself cool, because it was hot in the kitchen and hot outside and I didn’t want to overheat like I did the day I was outside for too long watering. ”
“Of course.”
“As you know, the oven handle on Bertha is messed up.”
“I have been saying for years that Bertha had to go.”
“How is that the point?”
“Why were you even using Bertha?”
“It was easier and closer.”
He groaned.
“Are you listening?”
“Clearly.”
“Do not be snide, Sam.”
“No. Never.”
“Or sarcastic. I’m still a bit flummoxed.”
“Nice word,” he complimented me. “Now go on.”
“Okay, so you know the oven handle gets really loose.”
“I do.”
“Like every second or third day, you have to screw the oven handle back on both ends, and it never really tightens all the way because the screws are stripped.”
“And you won’t let me touch it or––”
“If you interrupt, you’ll be home before you know what happened.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“I have that perfect little three-inch screwdriver, though, that fits in the space so I can tighten the screws.”
“Yes. It’s blue.”
“It is,” I said, pleased that he remembered that.
“Keep going.”
“Anyway, when I was pulling the pie out of the oven, I noticed the handle was wobbly, so I shut the oven off, closed the door, and put the pie on top of my cooling rack. Then I went to swap out my neck cooler because it wasn’t cold anymore.
It was actually liquid by then, so I got a new one. You know I have two so I can do that.”
“Killing. Me.”
“I think I should just wait until you get home so you can just speak to the firemen instead of me and––”
“I’m sorry. I can hear in your voice you’re upset. Please go on.”
I let out a long-suffering sigh before continuing so he could hear how patient I was being. “Okay, so after I went and got a new one, I started getting all the ingredients together for the quesadillas I was going to make for dinner tonight.”
“Okay.”
“But before I was going to start chopping, before I got out the skillet, I thought I should fix the handle on the oven. So I opened the door about five inches, the regular amount I normally do when I’m fixing the handle, and I screwed on the left screw.”
“This is a form of torture in some circles.”
“That’s it, I––”
“Wait. I’m sorry. Please finish.”
“You got exasperated when you said you wouldn’t.”
“I know, forgive me.”
I grunted.
“Please.”
Hard to say no to a please from Sam Kage.
“Okay, so when I turned my body to screw on the right one, I don’t know how it happened, but the ice ring, that was mostly frozen, slipped down from around my neck and fell into the oven.
And, like, the second, the nanosecond that it hit the bottom of the oven, the oven exploded into blue flames and I almost got my face seared off. ”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I jerked back and slammed the oven door shut, because again, it was only open about five inches, and the force of the fire whipped the oven door back open, and I had to jump out of the way. It was pretty good, by the way. I’m telling you, my jump was impressive.”
“Love––”
“I ran to get the fire extinguisher, but when I came back and tried to use it, it wasn’t working.
I pulled the pin and everything, and you know we just replaced all of them, but that one, I swear to God, was a dud.
And the firemen agreed with me when I showed it to them.
They suggested we take it back and get a refund. ”
“Okay.”
“All right, so I managed to shut the oven door, and then I opened it back up a little bit, and the fire looked like it was down, but I started smelling, like, burning rubber. Not like plastic, but like that awful rubber smell, you know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“So then I thought, I better take Chilly and Dobby and get out of the house, but I thought I should check the fire again, and I opened the oven a little, and it ignited all over again, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. And not from the smoke but from the chemical rubber smell.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding a bit worried at that point.
“I ran outside with our two furry people, and I called the fire department, and they were, like, okay, we got it, we’re on our way now.”
“Oh, baby.”
“Yeah, it was crazy. And two firetrucks came, Sam, and they brought in this really big, what appeared to be a giant fire extinguisher. But it looked weird, and I don’t know if it was water or a chemical agent, but, like, everything is wet in our kitchen at the moment.”
“Okay,” he rushed out.
“But fun story, the oven is not completely done. It just needs a really good scrubbing.”
“And a new handle.”
“Well, yes.”
“But you had them take it out?”
“Yeah. I think Bertha and I have come to the end of our relationship.”
“I see.”
“You know, they had to pull off the handle to get it through the back door. That feels a bit ironic, don’t you think?”
“Love––”
“I did have them reattach the handle before they took it to the curb.”
“Christ. There’s a lesson in this, though. Do not bake with an ice ring around your neck.”
“But I didn’t bake.”
“Well, you opened the oven and it was hot.”
“Fair. That’s fair. This fire is my fault.”
“But the fire didn’t go anywhere else but the oven.”
“That is true.”
“So when I get home, I’ll bring all the box fans up from the basement and we’ll blow the rubber smell out of the house.”
“The firemen opened all the windows, which of course is doing nothing to help our air conditioner work in this heat, but they did check the house and said that the oxygen levels are okay, so it’s safe to be in there.”
“Good,” he soothed me. “I’ll be there shortly. Hang in there, Pyro.”