06 September 2007

One Hot Mama

At this very moment, my oven is heated to 700+ degrees. No, I'm not baking a cake.

I'm cleaning my oven.

In the 13 years we have lived in this house, we have never once used the self-cleaning feature on the oven.

I have cleaned the oven by hand all this time, but not as often as I should, I confess. You see, back when we lived in Chicago, I had an unfortunate incident with Easy Off Oven Cleaner. I sprayed the foam on the oven walls and was wiping it down when all of a sudden, I got an itch on the end of my nose. So naturally I scratched it.

And do you know what happened?

The Easy Off Oven Cleaner began burning my nose. Not just burning, mind you, but actually EATING a dime-sized hole in the very tip of my nose. The pain was unbelievable. Spouse rushed me to the emergency room where, after they stopped laughing, the ER staff plastered my nose with a white paste to stop the lye from doing any more damage.

Eventually the quarter-inch deep hole filled in with a lovely scab, giving me a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer appearance for weeks. Believe me, it's not easy to cover up a large black scab on the end of your nose. It's a good conversation-starter, though.

So tonight I'm celebrating my self-cleaning oven.

And my blemish-free nose.

7 comments:

CircesMagic said...

Oh my GOODNESS! You poor poor thing! I give you credit for even using the self cleaning, after that ordeal I would never go near the oven again, and considering I hate cooking I would hang onto that fear forever...hey, anything to get out of making dinner ;0)

Anonymous said...

It's nice to see that you're spending time in that beautifully remodeled kitchen, even if it's only to clean the oven.

Lynn said...

Good Golly, It sounds like something that would happen to me, lol. I hate cleaning the oven also. I actually dread it. In the summer I barely use the thing just so I won't have to clean it. I think I should just hire a maid to clean the oven, the bathroom and the floors those are the things I hate doing the most.

EquineSpirit said...

Oh my...LOL! Our current oven is the first self cleaning one I've ever had and I love it...no more stinky cleaners and thankfully I've never gotten an itch while cleaning...OUCH!!

Anonymous said...

oh, my! It's not a funny story, but I laughed. I hated those cleaners. The oven at this house does not get cleaned often and it is self-cleaning. You now have a clean oven to start your French cooking. Can't wait to hear about the first thing that is baked in this clean oven.

Jill said...

Oh my gosh! See that's the problem with warning labels today - you can't tell when something really is dangerous because EVERYTHING has to have 349 labels about all the dangers. I saw a beach ball once that had warning labels covering an entire side of the ball, at least as many warnings as a can of Easy Off.

I really don't clean my oven...well, I'd have to actually use it for it to need cleaning. But I *have* cleaned it once or twice with Easy Off, so I sure will keep your story in mind if I ever do again!

Maureen said...

LOL! Sorry to laugh at your accident, but I can just picture that scene at the ER!!!

I hated using my self-cleaning oven in our old house... I always had the irrational fear it would burn down the place!