Love/Hate relationship with my oven

My oven and I have been having this on again, off again relationship since it entered my life 3 years ago. Sure, it makes wonderful goodies to treat me...chocolate chip cookies, french fries, full course Thanksgiving dinners...whatever I've asked of it, it has dutifully performed without so much as a whimper. The problems we started having began about a year ago when I, in one of my domestic moments (I really should realize that I'm domestically challenged and these "moments" can only lead to disaster) decided that I needed to clean the little grate looking thing behind the handle. But no matter how I approached it, I couldn't reach in there to clean it out. No problem I thought. I'm a woman, a Domestic Engineer (Hubby is probably laughing at this point), I can figure this out! I carefully look at the door's construction and see several screws. I pick 2 that look like the screws that belong to the handle, grab my screwdriver and begin to unscrew. What happened next is kind of a blur, but when my vision cleared, I was looking at my oven door, glass and all lying on the floor looking rather pathetic. Those 2 screws were apparently holding the entire door onto place. Whoopsie! I tried valiantly to put my friend back together, but like Humpty Dumpty, it just wasn't happening. Realizing that I needed to break down and call in the experts, I picked up the phone, prepared myself for the laughter and called Hubby. We won't go into all the details of the conversation (lots of laughter with an undertone of exasperation was involved ). When he came home that night, we put it back together again (fortunately for the oven door, it wasn't completely like Humpty. It only took 3 of us to put it back together again). No worse for wear, the oven door looked just fine and had a thorough cleaning while apart. I, however, was banned from ever using a screwdriver to take anything apart again. I am still allowed to put things together with a screwdriver. Anyway, I don't think the oven realized that the door episode was done with the best of intentions. I didn't mean to hurt it. But in hindsight I believe it felt such shame and humiliation at being disrobed for a day that it sat in diabolical quietness waiting for the right moment to strike.

Which leads us to this week. There's this little button on the oven called Auto-Clean. I've always looked at the button and wondered, "Is it too good to be true?" "Would it really work?" It took 3 years to muster up the courage to push that button (and realizing that if I didn't just push a button, I'd have to actually spray with oven cleaner, scrub, etc.). 3 years, endless amounts of grease and food stuck on the bottom and finally admitting defeat when I couldn't bake anything without having one of the kids on standby to wave a paper plate by the smoke detector just so I could open the door and pull the food out. Ok, I didn't admit defeat that quickly, the kid/paper plate thing has been going on for well over a year, but hey on the bright side, we've never needed to check the batteries on the smoke detector...works just fine. So, it really was just another domestic moment (that I still haven't learned spells doom for me) that inspired me to push that button. Now the self-cleaning feature could go anywhere from 2.5 hours to 4.5 hours depending on how dirty it was. I set it for 4.5 hours since it had never been done. About 30 minutes into it (oven door's locked mind you) I see fire. It wasn't constant, rather pretty actually, a lick of flame would shoot from one side of the oven to the other in a sort of dance. And each time that happened a puff of smoke would shoot out the front, the oven's attempt to blow smoke rings I suppose. I quickly opened all the windows and turned on the attic fan in an attempt to not have to listen to the smoke detector all day. I was keeping a close eye on the oven wondering if flames are a normal by-product of pushing the Auto-Clean button when Hubby came home for lunch. After the laughter subsided, we googled self-cleaning ovens and fire and pretty much came up empty handed. We made the decision to let it go. The flames weren't continuous like a true fire and we figured after the 1st layer of grease burned off it should be fine. It took 1 hour for the oven to quit flaming and smoking. After 5 hours it had cooled enough for me to vacuum/wipe it out. We had forgotten it was blue inside!

The next day I made fish sticks and the children started complaining. "Mommy, what are you making for dinner that smells so bad?" I walk in the kitchen and explain to them that what they are smelling are the fish sticks and that's how they're supposed to smell. When they were finished, I opened the door without having a child on standby, no smoke or anything. We tasted the fish sticks and could only taste fish stick, no added smokey flavor.

While I didn't burn the house down, I think the oven has proved a point. It would really appreciate more ongoing maintenance and in return I sure hope it decides to give me a break the next time a domestic moment causes me to look its way!