Shaving the Stove

I? Am sore. My arms ache, my elbows tingle when I straighten my arms up, my wrists are creaking, and my hands are alternately cramping, burning, and throbbing. My poor fingers...they may never be the same.

It's all because of shaving the stove.

Gripping a razor blade can play hell on the fingers, even when it's not a double-edged blade. After a while, it plain hurts, especially with the constant pressure and scraping. Shaving a stove requires a little brute strength.

Yes, I said "shaving the stove".

If you have been reading for any length of time, you know that this past Spring we had a tragic death here at Casa de Crazy - the drop-in stove/oven appliance gave its last gasp just as I was attempting to bake some brownies. After I drove like a loony to K2's house to borrow her oven, I had to figure out how the hell we were going to cook stuff here at the Casa.

Mum heroically offered to buy a new one, but that didn't sit right - we had a stove/oven in the garage acting as a shelf, one Someone earned with sweat equity when he helped K2' family move into their new digs. A perfectly nice ceramic top, in fact. Why couldn't we use that?

Well, because it was a slide-in, not a drop-in, and those are two different critters.

Luckily we had a friend (Handy Joe) who sweat, bled a little, finagled some wiring and a saw, and got her done.

The stove was a used one, but in fairly good nick...it just had some...er...schmutz around the two left burners. A bit of elbow grease would deal with that. Or would it?

Apparently, not so much.

For months, I have waged war on the stove top, scrubbing until I hurt, and the schmutz remained undaunted, unimpressed, and un-removed.

I remembered, finally, that Mum had a ceramic top stove, and she had a razor thingy with which she scraped it from time to time.

I have no razor thingy, but thanks to the card-making and photo-mounting I do, I have razor blades.

I grabbed one and set to, and wouldn't you know it? The schmutz came off. It came off in large, cone-shaped curls. It came off in powdery poofs. It came off as crispy flakes. It came off!

I spent a fair bit of time yesterday shaving the stove, and it is almost done.

As soon as I can feel my fingers again, I'm going to finish the job.