Monday, August 24, 2009

the oven ate my dinner!

I am so not having a good day, lol. Those of you familiar with my history with appliances will love this one.
About five? years ago IMAG and I gave up on used appliances and splurged on a kitchen full of lovely, sparkly, brand new, state of the art black ones. They were fantastic. I have an all fridge beside an upright freezer, a range hood that matches and a ceramic top stove. The stove was my big splurge. After years of a very ugly avocado green monstrosity with never clean electric rings, completely rewired by my Father in Law at least a million times, I was sure I wanted the ceramic top. Should be easier to clean, right? Was told by someone I knew who had one that I would love it. Think it was her way of getting even with me for some terrible thing I must have done to her in the past. Hate it. Have since day two. Thousand dollar stove. Never clean no matter what I do. When it was less than a month old IMAG hit it when it was hot and it shattered. Four hundred plus dollars later I had a new top on my new stove.
But I loved the oven. It has a computer! You can set it for what time you want dinner to be ready, leave the house and come home to a perfectly cooked roast or whatever makes you happy.
Yup.
Did I mention it has a computer? So, a few months back I put a roast in the oven. It starts to cook. The stove starts to beep. The display says F1. F1? WTF? I run to find my manual and look up F1. It isan error code for some kind of control for the oven. Meanwhile the oven door locks itself and my roast is trapped. Yikes! What do I do now? IMAG will be home soon and supper is locked in the oven.
So I go to the internet and look up said control. It is over four hundred dollars and then you have to pay for a repairman because it is a computer part and just a bit out of IMAG's range of expertise.
Grrrr. Eventually it relented and released my dinner. Funnily enough the roast was cooked just the way IMAG likes it.
So it only does this if you try to run the oven at high temperatures. Solution? Don't use the oven at high temperatures! Until today.
*Sigh.*
Trying to cook some pork chops for IMAG to take over to the hospice to share with his Father for dinner. I put the oven on at 350 degrees. This is not what I would call high temperatures. The oven ate my pork chops. Yup. They are locked in there for good I think.
*sigh*
Guess I will have to start saving my money for another stove. Not going to spend another four hundred plus dollars on this one when Home Depot has a lovely one for six fifty! With the added bonus of good old fashioned chrome rings and the ability to get it clean even if it does require a little bit of scrubbing once in a while.
Meanwhile, here's hoping it relents and lets me have the pork chops before dinnertime.

hey that was my twenty!

Saturday night was not a lucky one for me! Went to the car wash, fed the machine a twenty for change. It ate it. Swallowed that bill like it hadn't been fed in weeks. No change. No return of the bill. Just gone.
Searched all over the building for a phone number to contact somebody. Anybody. Checked with the guy working in the gas station. They have nothing to do with the car wash. Doesn't even know who owns it. Just that someone from Toronto comes by once a month or so to do some maintainance.
Tried the phone number for the security company that is supposed to have 24 hour surveillance on the building. That got me a phone number for a pager. Tried that. Got a phone call from a male named Hasim who claimed he didn't know how to get a hold of the owner. Hmm. 24 hour security but can't get in touch with anyone? Somehow I don't quite believe his story holds water!
So, I did what any normal, sane, completely in control person would do! I made a sign. I posted it on the car wash. It disappeared in a matter of hours. Someone obviously responsible for this business saw it and took it down. But I have a picture!
Tried phoning the pager yet again today. So far no response.
So I am now warning y'all.......if you try to use the car wash at the Esso station at Colborne and Puleston, bring your own change. The machine is a monster that will steal your cash!
After twenty years of washing my car there and several years of watching the property at night when I worked in the taxi office next door, I won't be going back. And that's a promise!