Mission Critical

Six months ago our oven broke down AGAIN for the fourth time. The first time the repairman came, he installed a new gas line. The second time he jiggled something on top of the oven and announced it was fixed. The third time, despite a strong smell of gas permeating the apartment, he said there was nothing wrong.

This was in May when my Family-To-Do list was at maximum capacity. I had camp to arrange, summer activities to organize, an overseas vacation to plan, children’s winter clothes to pack and summer clothes to buy. That was in addition to working 50 to 60 hour weeks and taking care of the day-to-day chores that keep the house from descending into anarchy. So we shut-off the gas which ignited the following.

“Did you call the oven repairman?” my husband asked. “It’s on the list,” I said as I busied myself reading

travel guides, booking and rebooking flights, searching out hotels on the web, talking to camp-directors, and did I mention working.

Still the question kept coming back. “Did you call? When’s he coming?” First my husband, then the baby-sitter, than my husband, than the baby-sitter – like a Greek chorus I couldn’t shake.

“It’s not Mission Critical,” I explained. There were simply too many other things on the list that needed to get done to ensure a happy summer. Fixing the oven wasn’t a priority. It wasn’t even close to Mission Critical. The gas was off. The stove worked perfectly well. It was fruit season. We were safe.

“Not Mission Critical,” I repeated over and over like a mantra each time the question was asked. By now even my young, impressionable kids had joined the chorus – though I’m pretty sure their primary objective was to get a rise out of me.

Then it happened. Someone asked the question one too many times. Silence descended.  Teeth clenched, eyes straight ahead I opened my laptop logged onto Amazon.com, clicked on Home Appliances and ordered a George Foreman Grill – the platinum model, the one the woman in the newspaper claimed she used to make a 14-course meal. It didn’t matter that I had no clue what “grilleration” meant– this was my answer.

When it was safely in my cart I clicked over to “books” and ordered the companion cookbook, psyched by its promise of 100 healthy recipes. And no, I did not stop there. Not by a long shot. I went to my favorite grocery site and ordered anything flat I could think of-- chicken breasts, hamburger meat, flank steak, cheese, bread.  End of discussion.

So why, given the time it took me to buy all that, didn’t I just call the oven repairman instead? Dread mostly. The oven was no longer a one-call, check-it-off-the-list kind of chore. It had become a snowball chore doomed to get bigger and bigger. I couldn’t face the thought of having to price new ovens, or start researching the benefits of gas versus electric, or re-sizing the cabinet, or re-servicing the gas line or installing an electric-line. I couldn’t face that, NOT when there were options like a stove, or a grill, or salad.

Fixing the oven, I decided, would not be Mission Critical until Thanksgiving. And that’s exactly when the repairman came back to my home and told me nothing was wrong with my oven.