For those of you who have forgotten the life changing story of how I faith healed our water cooler (and really - how could you have?), please refer to the archive section (May 2007).... but enough living in the past!!! Only losers do that!!! In this "what have you done for me lately?" world, we need a new story.... something to keep hope going in the darkest nights of the prairie winter.... Enter our 20 year old oven!
The distress call came in at 4:54 when Sari called my office to say that the wonderful roast beef supper that she had planned had been thwarted by the death of the oven! Being the helpful, happy man that I am, I did the only logical thing: I yelled "What? Oh come on!!!!" and then started crying like a little girl. After having Sari question my manhood and berate me over the phone (seriously - you people don't know the real Sari - YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIVE WITH HER RAGE ISSUES!!!!) I decided to do the only thing I could do at that moment.... leave town!! However reality kicked in when I got in my old truck and realized that, in this weather, it may not make it past Macoun, so I decided to go home and begin the fight with our senior citizen of an oven!!!
After taking out the fuses, turning the on/off thinger 890475890346893476 times and glaring at it for 10 minutes - I came to my conclusion... "This stupid thing doesn't work!" At that point, Sari left the room.
I then proceeded to take the element out to test it - and in doing so I held up a grand Pippus tradition..... I almost electrocuted myself. Ask my mom, Sari, or Lenny's wife Tracy - they can supply many funny stories about Lenny and me almost dying while taking things apart. (Editor's note: Only sissies unplug things before working on them)
Having determined (the hard way) that there was at least some power at the element, I proceeded to take the back off the stove - have you ever seen the mess of wires back there? Yikes!!! Oddly enough - I somehow know the smell of burnt electrical wires (go figure hey?), so I immediately realized that there was a problem - that and the fact that there was this burnt wire hanging down from the thermostatic control unit (or so it said on it) - those were two strong clues!
Long story short (b/c I am not getting paid by the word here ya know?), a quick trip to Canadian Tire for a wire end thinger, a little testing with the multimeter, a bad burn on my hand while trying to see if the element was actually working or not (good thing I did not use my tongue as I first wanted to) and our old oven is back in business.
The miracle part? I spread the whole thing all over the kitchen floor and it still works! Haven't you been paying attention????
Now, if the house burns down - I had nothing to with re-wiring my stove!!!!
So, here is the deal.... we are offering tours of our "Miraculous Kitchen" - we are calling it "Twenty three years old and still going strong.... sort of", or "Maytag's warranty runs out at 20 years - bah!". You can see EITHER the stove or the water cooler for $5 - or (just for you internet readers) you can see BOTH for $15 (no pictures please!).
Or for $20 I will stop writing stupid things like this altogether! Here is a teaser for you.....
