The Stove

I decided that since I was finally all the way, (mostly) moved in, it was time to tackle the stove and oven.


I was sorely unprepared for the taste. What I initially thought was an easy task of switching out the little foil things, giving the coils and silver rims a good scrubbing, and then reassembling the oven became a monumental task of degreaser and scrubby sponge verses a centimeter or more of thick, black grease and grime.


In one corner, we had the yellow degreaser and two new sponges with the green scrubby sides. In the other corner, we had a harvest yellow stove from the 1950's that may have never have actually been cleaned in its whole existence.


Thankfully, Gina was actually with me on this adventure. She was more knowledgable about the cleaning. We went to work.


I soaked the greasy, grimy silver circles that held the coils up normally, and the bowls that must have originally been silver in color in a hot tub of water in the sink. Gina took a plastic butter knife and scraped chunks of grease out from the inside of the stove.


The disgust was written all over our faces as my trash can filled with solidified burnt grease. Gina threatened on several occasions to vomit.


Finally, I had to call my brother.


"Hey, Alex?" I said into the phone walking into the living room.


"Sista'!" I could hear him creaking in the computer chair.


"Could you do me a favor?" I asked, twirling the invisible cord like I used to do before cell phones.


"Maybe..." This was how all our deals were made. There was a mutual understanding that if I did something for him, I would require some form of payment. If he did something for me, I had to pay him back somehow.


"Trust me," I said, still twirling that invisible cord, "It'll be worth it!" I was sure he could hear the manic smile.


"What do you want?"


"Could you bring over the vacuum cleaner with the hose attachments, and the foil bowl things you put in the stove top. Ask Adam what they are, and he can tell you where to find them."


"Can I ask why you need the vacuum cleaner? I thought you just bought one." I could hear him sighing as he got up to do my bidding.


"Well, I am cleaning my stove, and I need to vacuum it." It seemed logical to me.


"You are one strange bird, sister."


"Thank you, brother!" I hung up. He was going to understand what I need the vacuum for soon enough.


I opened the front door so he could come in, then went back to work cleaning the things that I had left to soak in the sink. Gina and I worked in silence, except for little "ughs" and "eww!" I heard my brother's familiar heavy breathing as he swung open the screen door. He had the vacuum and the aluminum bowl things I needed.


"Now tell me why you need this vacuum." I motioned with a pointed finger under the left front coil.


"Look under the coil." He did.


"Yuck! What is all that?" That was burnt peanut shells, a Swedish fish wrapper, pools of grease, and other crunched up burnt foods.


"That is why we need the vacuum cleaner with the hose," Gina explained, scraping another swatch of grease out from under another coil.


"I can see that. Imma let you guys take care of that. Call me when you're done." He left, running barefoot out by the woods to mom's house. I hooked up the vacuum cleaner and started sucking all the crap out from the stove top. When that was finished, Gina scrubbed all the crap out of there too, and we were finally ready to start using the sponges.


I flipped mine over to the green side and got to work. After my sponge got stuck in the grease four times, no matter how much degreaser I convinced it to soak up, the green scrubs began to tear off and were stuck under the stove.


"Shit," I cursed, looking closely at the state of my sponge. It was shredded and pulled bare, like it was ten years old and not fresh out of the package. Gina had a similar result.


Annoyed, I attacked the stove with a vengeance, scrapping and swiping up the grease. It started to look cleaner, little by little. After two hours of straight cleaning, Gina and I gave into our grumbling, angry tummies.


"Fine!" I yelled at my stomach, looking at it with disdain. Why wasn't life like the Sims? Instead of eating, I could just cheat my moodlets away! But life wasn't like the Sims, so I made the executive decision to feed both Gina and me.


We reconstructed the stove, drained the sink and began washing our hands. I started freaking out when the grease would just not come off my hands. After several washes, I was clean enough to do surgery with my bare hands.


I called Alex up again and asked him to take the vacuum back. He said he would be over in a minute, so I fetched his present out of the freezer. He swung my screen door open again and the familiar labored breathing was there.


"Here," I said, handing him a quarter pound of dark chocolate fudge. "I bought this in Michigan for you."


"Holy shit!" He inspected the fudge, then dropped it in his pocket. I always wondered why guys got to have pockets that were practically a foot deep, and girls only had pocket that could barely fit a roll of quarters.


"Just for you," I said, rolling the vacuum over to him. He scooped it up under his arm like a lumberjack and tipped an imaginary hat at us.


"Good day, ladies," he said, using his english voice and getting that goofy, semi-creepy face that looked like the cat had definitely caught the mouse.


He left, and again I found myself wondering what giant gene had grown him.


While I made dinner, Gina made the bed. (A slightly annoying habit of hers.) I pointed out that it was just going to get unmade in "like an hour." She shrugged.


"Hey, can you not spoon me tonight?"


"I didn't spoon you last night."


"Incorrect!" I pointed my wooden spoon at her. "You kept grabbing me and like the freaking Hulk, you would drag me across the bed and spoon me."


"No way!" She shook her head. "I definitely did not do that!"


"You did! But it's not like it was really all that bad," I shrugged.


"Why not?" She raised an eyebrow.


"Well, you were wearing pants, at least."


"Yes, at least I was wearing pants!"