December 25, 2007

The inner life of ovens

We have a Whirlpool oven with a control panel covered by a plastic membrane. When I want to preheat it, I press the "Bake" button; it defaults to 350 degrees. If I want a different temperature I press the "Up" or "Down" arrows next to the "Bake" button to get the desired temperature, then press the "Start" button. Sometimes there's a glitch in the controls, and no matter that I press "Down," the temperature reading starts moving up. This is annoying.

Today, getting ready to cook the roast beast, I wanted to preheat the oven to 325 degrees. I pressed the "Bake" button and then the "Down" button. It promptly started upward toward 500 degrees. "Okay," I said, "we'll try this again." I turned it off, waited a minute or two and tried again. The same thing happened. This went on for about five minutes.

"Alright," I thought, "I'll use the Westinghouse roaster." Fortunately I'd cleaned it after Sunday's turkey dinner. I went over to it, plugged it in, and set the (dial) control to 325. The light lit up to show it was preheating.

I decided to give the oven one last shot. I pressed the "Bake" button and tried the "Down" button. It started down and I stopped it at 325 degrees and pressed the "Start" button.

If that oven could talk, I imagine it muttering to itself "What? He's gonna use that? I'm 2005-era technology, and he's gonna use that miserable thing? Why, it's 50 years old! Dammit, that's just wrong! Here, boss, try me again -- I promise I'll work this time."

Posted by Linkmeister at December 25, 2007 04:00 PM | TrackBack
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