Seeking Stove Assassin

I know I haven't posted since last week, Mom, but you and the two non-English-speaking co-workers you coerce into reading this blog are going to have to accept some news - Whoreticulture Friday and I are on a break.  Like Ross and Rachel.  And maybe we can see other days of the week, but then we really want to be together, but circumstances beyond our control just somehow keep us apart.  Maybe in the future, when I'm making a commitment to Wednesday, I'll accidentally call it Friday, and then Wednesday will storm out on me and go back to England and I'll stare out of a window with the U2 song "With or Without You" playing and it will ruin that song for me forever.

I'm not saying I'm quitting Whoreticulture Friday.  I ain't quittin' you.  But I think we need to see other days of the week for a while.  Every once in a while I'm sure I'll go on a binge and drunk dial you and we'll end up together for the week, but it's going to be an open relationship.  Like Bill and Hillary.

Last week was kind of hectic at Current Full-Time Job, and I had a few days where I might have considered kicking a kitten and needed a Xanax intervention if I took Xanax, so by Friday night I paged Dr. Blue Moon and Orange Slice and I planned my strategy for NCAA basketball watching.  (My bracket, by the way?  Totally blown since the Sweet 16.  I needed you, Ohio State and Kansas.  I needed you both bad.  But I am now all VCU and Butler, because who can't get behind a Cinderella story?)  The strategy included more beer, guacamole, cheese, blue corn chips, and some homemade buffalo wings from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook.

Saturday morning (okay, around 10 when I actually got up) I made cinnamon rolls from a tube and coffee and laid out the ingredients for my feast.  I melted the sweet dairy butter and added the cayenne pepper and kosher salt and Frank's Hot Sauce until it was melted and buttery and delicious.  I took out the wings, pulled the saran wrap off, and...

Sweet Baby Jesus, these are rancid!!

But wait!  There's more!  So was the milk, and the mayo, and the dip...are you getting the theme here??  Yes, my damn refrigerator was as lukewarm as the public's support of Chris Brown's new album.  I know you aren't supposed to play favorites, but my fridge was my top appliance.  My dishwasher is a lazy sack of crap, the microwave doesn't have a rotating tray (Hello!  When did they stop making those, 1995?) and the stove is a flat surface, which takes about 20 minutes to boil water and then 1 hour to cool down.  Since we moved into Current House, I've been dying to replace all of the appliances - except the fridge.  Et tu, Frigedaire.

Did I worry about the fridge?  No.  I drove to the store for more wings and $5 of lottery tickets.  I started formulating ideas about the kitchen.  Here is a transcript of my brain on the way to the store.  The fridge has been known to be dead for about 10 minutes:

"Okay, so as long as the fridge is a goner, I might as well replace it with French doors and a pullout freezer below, and I want the model with the ice maker/water dispenser I used to have at Previous House.  I suppose I should get it in stainless steel because even though it shows fingerprints the resale will be higher in a kitchen with stainless appliances.  As long as the fridge is being replaced, I might as well get a gas stove, new microwave, and dishwasher with stainless tub like the one at Previous House, and they all have to be stainless steel because they all need to match.  Resale, of course.  And I'm sure it will be cheaper in the long run to buy them all now because we'll get some kind of 0% interest deal if we spend over $3000, which we are sure to do.  Maybe I can get my British/Australian installer back, he was fun.  Then, as long as the fridge is out and the other appliances too, we  might as well rip out the vinyl floor, replace the questionable plywood flooring underneath left by Previous Owner, and then tile it in my beloved black/white checkerboard squares.  Wow, this fridge thing is a bummer, but I'm sure it will work out for the best.  Yay, me, and my new kitchen!  For resale value!"

By the time I got home, I had mentally prepared to spend approximately $8000.  And have a party celebrating my new kitchen.  Current Husband, on the other hand, had been Googling "Broken refrigerator" and had The Son using a blow dryer to defrost the coils in the freezer.  Apparently they can freeze over with frost, blocking the cold air that goes up into the fridge to keep everything cold.  By Sunday afternoon, the fridge was fixed.

yay.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm happy to not spend the money.  But in the words of Air Supply, I'm all out of love with the old kitchen now.  I have New Kitchen on the brain.  The clock has started.  It's only a matter of time before something else dies and I am forced to completely remodel my kitchen around the dead appliance.   Consider yourself warned, CH.

Does anyone know how to accidentally break a flat surface stove?