Nov 17 2001
House Call
Our beautiful old Wedgewood stove was the only thing in our kitchen that wasn’t hideous when we first bought this place. In the intervening years, we remodelled the kitchen, but the stove has remained the focal point, a rare and delightful combination of both form and function. It is also Jack’s favorite lounging place, as you can see from the picture. Jack may be many things, but she’s not stupid — the pilot lights under the chrome top of the stove keep it pretty toasty.
But this past week, our stove has been behaving very temperamentally. The pilot light in the oven would go out, and we’d re-light it. Sometimes it would stay lit, and sometimes it wouldn’t. By the end of the week, the stove had taken on diva-like qualities that we had hitherto never suspected, and began turning itself off in the middle of cooking dinner, mostly when we weren’t looking. So we decided we’d better get a stove doctor to make a house call. After all, Thanksgiving is taking place here this year, and I don’t think I could make the ritual feast without the help of La Wedgewood, preferably operating at top form.
We scheduled the house call for Friday at 3:00. As Rufus was hanging up after making the appointment, the phone doctor’s receptionist said, “Between 3 and 5, OK?” and hung up herself.
So it ended up being a lot like going to the doctor ourselves, where we’d wait in the waiting room for seemingly ages, and then actually spend about 15 minutes with the doctor before being told there was nothing wrong, paying the co-payment, and being hustled out the door to make way for the next victim. At least we were able to wait clothed in the comfort of our own home instead of shivering in those dignity-destroying gowns which are not only apparently made for midgets, but designed to give the maximum exposure to one’s derri?re.
The stove doctor didn’t arrive until after 6:30, but he was so funny and charming that we couldn’t stay mad at him. He also fixed the stove in a few minutes, and so far, so good. Hopefully the stove is back to its reliable old self again.
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