Lady Fix-It

First comes the gas smell, then the inability to heat toaster waffles in your oven (don't own toaster). The option of bumping yourself off old-school talented writer-style is officially out: these new ovens know to stop the gas flow. Besides, you don't want to get out of a loveless marriage or a spiraling sense of existential doom: you just want a landscape for maple syrup. Did you know there are other options besides calling your management company and wheedling a visit from a handyman out of them? You can use the interwebs to do it yourself!

If you have never taken apart your oven and re-lit the pilot flame on your own, you may feel free to sit back and admire my prowess. Like any true repairperson, I effectively got rust and charcoal all over my clothing, and grit my teeth all purposeful-like while employing my pretty IKEA tools. The trick to find the pilot light is indeed a trick, however. It is not just an obvious spot you place a match to. It is not a button, or a miniature dachshund in an Amelia Earhart cap waving from a model plane that you have to give a biscuit of fire to. If you examine the inside of your oven, you will think it is just urban legend that there even is such a thing: doesn't the heat instead come from the the rubbing together of two thoughts?

In reviewing the various unintelligible diagrams proffered, I realized there was only one thing to do, and that was stir-fry vegetables for lunch. When that was done, I unscrewed the base of the oven floor, unscrewed something that looked like the roof of a little red schoolhouse, and then set about sticking matches into various orifices until something took. Then after I'd put the whole megillah back together again, the light went out. Rinse, repeat. And voila! To fix the stains on my dress, the internet dictated lemon juice. I added water, sugar, and ice cubes. I have good taste in clothing.

Finally, in the order of journalistic honesty, I must confess that it was not toaster waffles I made at all, but the warming of corn tortillas. I abused your love of tree sap, dear reader, to connive you into reading this post. But tortillas, my friend: are they ever good filled with homemade guacamole, cherry tomatoes, and romaine. Are they ever.