Danger! Danger!

It is time to get a new gas range. The stove was here when we bought the house, and it has never worked well. As a matter of fact the stovetop didn’t light at all when we first moved in. After some major scouring three out of the four burners worked relatively well, but that fourth one still won’t light. It can be complicated to fry fish, heat a spicy white sauce, cook rice and steam vegetables all at the same time; actually, I can’t do all of those things on the stove tops simultaneously- something always ends up in the microwave.

The front left burner used to emit a semi-large fireball while igniting if another burner was already lit. My husband used to crouch down so that he could look the burner directly in the eye, like he was trying to give it the I’m-the-boss-of-you stare and frighten it into submission, but all it would do was continue to click, click, click. Many a time did I advise him to move his eyebrows out of the way of the fireball that was to come if he didn’t want to smell of burnt hair for the rest of the week. Or perhaps he would like to turn the knob off and stop the gas from leaking into the entire house. The burner works fine now, but my husband still doesn’t know how to operate the range.

It is the oven’s manner of operation that has sealed the fate of the entire range. When it ignites, it initially omits a rather ominous stench of gas, and the whoosh of ignition is a little too intense. I thought the smell was possibly a bit stronger than the oven in our previous apartment, but it dissipates almost instantly so I wasn’t really bothered a whole lot by it. However, my mom was here last night and having never had a gas range she was surprised at the odor. The more I thought about it and talked with other family members who have gas ranges, I realized that the oven is taking too long to light (hence the reek of gas and the caliber of the whooshing), just like the stove burner used to. As I am not interested in manufacturing an explosion worthy of director Michael Bay, I intend to purchase a new oven as soon as possible.