Lessons in pizza making.
Immutable Lesson #1 – Natural Gas is flammable and explosive
Immutable Lesson #2 – Even two year old girls have more common sense than two adult males.
My gas range/oven combo recently stopped working; the oven flame wouldn’t light, I couldn’t eat dinner and we smelled gas. Being less adventurous on my own I called BopOp to bolster my courage. After a bit of brief phone-detective he said “Maybe I should just come over?” I said ‘Yes’, already feeling the magic.
Forty minutes, one drill, eight wrenches, two flashlights, one green dental mirror, one black fluffy feather, and a ten gallon hat full of confidence later the oven is somewhat apart and attention is focused on the offending natural gas nozzle.
Abby: (Resolutely referring to her dental mirror on the floor)That is for in your mouth not under the oven.
All: (Distractedly) We know honey. Thanks for letting us borrow it
Abby: Its for in your mouth. Can I have it back please?
With the lower drawer extracted so we could get at the important bits BopOp is on the floor on his side with the black fluffy feather purposefully perched over the nozzle to indicate flow when the nozzle is asked to perform. The rub is that the nozzle isn’t asked to perform by the overly complex circuitry until such time as the small electrical element located very near to the nozzle reaches the appropriate operating temperature somewhere around 1200° F
At this point Angela is in the adjoining room on my laptop looking at new ovens.
Angela: We can get a cheap one for $250!
Abby: (of Angela) Mommy? Can I have my mirror back now? It is on the floor.
Despite the fact that we brimming with Zimmerman and our confidence is riding a wave of success BopOp and I are acutely aware of the power inherent in the combination of natural gas and extreme localized temperatures so we are taking every precaution. For instance, I took it upon myself to make sure the door was mostly closed while I observed at close range the performance of said nozzle and I took the important step to ensure my finger was poised adroitly over the Set/Cancel button should the unlikely need arise. And I mean he has a feather for chrissakes. ‘Safety First’.
Abby: (still from the other room) Daddy!? Can I have my mirror back now? Don’t step on it cause it’s on the floor.
Just then, element glowing proudly, my finger poised skillfully, Abby’s black fluffy feather positioned neatly by BopOp incapable of retreat, the nozzle which previously had responded to no small amount of cajoling by the cowboys in ten gallon hats sprang to life with a menacing and unsociable “BbBbBbBbggggggggggPOW!”
‘Gas? Welcome to the party. Allow me to introduce you to Twelvehundred Degrees and his best friend Oxygen.’
BopOp: Whoaaa! <incoherent> TURNITOFF! TURNITOFF!
Quick as a catnap I deactivated the source of the yellow flame prancing it’s way around Angela’s oven. Quicker than that Abby, toddler extraordinaire and momentarily abandoning her unrequited longing for the forlorn green dental mirror, calmly and skillfully closed the door/firebreak to the adjoining room saying to Angela:
Abby: That was polite. That’s OK right?
The result?
One charred black feather
At least One hairless finger (BopOp)
One green dental mirror returned
One fixed oven, not the worse for it’s hotflash and
Immutable lesson #3: One smallish and disagreeable MexiFiesta Taco-Pizza is certainly not worth the wrestle.
blief 
Will Abby ever forgive me for burning up her black feather? Did her fine green dental mirror get appropriately cleaned and put away?
The hair is completely gone off of two of my fingers, and only half gone off the other two, but does that constitute an injury? I usually hurt myself when working on do-it-yourself projects, but I don’t consider incinerated hair an injury.
That flame wasn’t really bad. I’ve had much worse, but my eyebrows and eyelashes grew back.
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That’s one of the funnier posts I’ve read anywhere. I like the insertion of quotes in the appropriate places.
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Are you sure the comment was, “whhooaaaaa” ? and not “whhooaaaaa” ? I won’t bother with Halloween this year, if I want to get good and scared I will just think of Jim and Lief working on a GAS oven. That is scary stuff! I know Theresa is with me on that. Ha.
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Why was my comment censored? It does not appear as written.
[I have to approve new commenters first – blief]
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Dad and I laughed so hard at your retelling of the story, and of course at Abby and her concern regarding her mirror!
My only comment regarding the message is this:
Where Bob-op is saying Whoaaaa! Turn it off, turn it off!
I am sure he would have said “Turn it off ” three times!
It is a fact fundamental to elderly Zimmerman men, everything must be yelled at least three times. Like rain in the rainforest, it is simply a given.
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You know, in the interest of authenticity I ensured that the part right before the two “Turnitoff!” ‘s was noted as <incoherent> but the chances that it was another “Turnitoff!” is high.
It was likely obfuscated by the “superhuman effort” of quickly extracting himself from beneath the oven without losing all his hair.
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Did you edit Moi’s comments? And did her original have an “F” involved?
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I didn’t edit content…not sure what censorship she is talking about if other than the fact that I hadn’t approved it to appear yet cause I was still at work?
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OMG I am laughing so hard I can hardly type! IS there time in the day to do another thing but keep up with all of this? HAAAAA Absolutely halarious! I can see the owernrs face concerning the “mirror” and I can picture the black feather and how it is being secured……haaaa. I am sure “Uncle’s” third “turn it off” was in a higher pitched voice than the two prior requests! Gotta love it……Blief your humor is so gutt loving wonderful and the way you “share” it is the best rememdy for a bad day I have yet seen………egods! I love it all! Good try for a new stove Angela…..you know the Z’ men just have to try to fix it first…..thank gosh too as they have saved tons of $ during the years! What did they do with “said” funds however…..Hummmmmmm ???????
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I don’t know why my comment didn’t come out as written. The words I put inside of the signs didn’t come out at all. Here I will re-create inside of “” marks. I asked if you were sure that when he said, “whhooaaaaa” “incoherent” that it really shouldn’t have been written as when he said, “whhooaaaaa” “expletive deleted”. I see I am more civilized than certain parties who are more freewheeling with the F word? Mon Dieu!
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Good grief!!!! It did it again! I am only trying to recreate the bigger than sign and the smaller than sign. The two symbols which encase the word ‘incoherent’ in Lief’s original text. I don’t know why they won’t reproduce. Or does Lief have to give permission for that too! How much power do you need Lief? When is it ever enough?????????? Careful or I may start a………… war….Huh………..you know the rest.
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Hey Mimi!
It’s funny that you’re having trouble, but the reason why is simple, and not funny at all. The GreaterThan sign (>) and the LessThan sign (<) are recognized by the web server as special characters that enclose something called an HTML tag. It doesn’t display them, but interprets them and then tries to use that interpretation to properly display other things in your message.
So the server took everything you put between those brackets, decided it didn’t mean anything, and ignored it. My advice to you is to avoid using those characters, but please do keep up the humor.
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Moi,
Bop-op is right. While I do have that much power on my site (like when I edit certain SPAM leaving posters <coughtony ahem>) to edit individual postings I did not do that on yours. Rather the web-browser tried it’s hardest to add an “expletive deleted” style to the text just after it. There are many things you can add like the greater thans and less thans but you have to preface them with a & then the little code of “gt” for greater than, and finish it off with a semi-colon. This tells the webbrowser to go and look for the character defined by that code.
Now if you can’t tell the difference between what I just said and the following α β π ψ ζ then just stick to the quotes or parentheses like Bop-op said.
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I figured it was something as such. Sorry, my head is chucked full of languages, no room for another right now. Will stick to the quotation marks. This is a project ‘greater than’ I wish to take on right now and I have ‘lessor than’ normal understanding of computers!!!!! Bon weekend.
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