Sunday, December 09, 2007, posted by Q6 at 11:19 PM
About four weeks ago, my oven died. Despite the fact that I'm a single father, I used my oven a lot. To have a kitchen without an oven proved to (a) strain my "eating out" budget more rapidly than predicted, and (b) leave the food in my freezer largely untouched. Ordering a new one proved easy (my fiancee helped with this, since she uses it too and will be living here in less than a year--thanks, sweetie); having it delivered was something of a chore, however, since the one I chose needed to be backordered. Finally, it arrived. The delivery men from Best Buy (who did an awesome job of the installation and not ruining my floor) gave me a chance to clean the floor underneath after moving the old one out.

This was like a little domestic archeological dig for me. The old range had been there for ten years, and there was quite a lot under there, despite how hard I try to keep this place clean. Here's what I found:

  • two fists full of dust (naturally)
  • a paper towel (folded)
  • two plastic clips that hold plastic bags closed (one white, one green)
  • two nails
  • a cardboard playing piece from a kiddie board game
  • a broken rubber band
  • a small plastic gasket (which, for all I know, is the part that caused the oven to stop working)
  • a wooden scrap of wood
  • a sanded wood dowel (very much like, but not, a Lincoln Log)
  • two refrigerator magnets
  • two beans (one kidney, one unknown)
  • fifteen cents (one dime, one nickel)
  • a piece of chipped plaster from the wall (oops)
  • five Mancala stones
  • three lego pieces
  • three kernels of popcorn (unpopped)
  • a dried lump of Play-Doh (lime green)
  • a dried lump of something else entirely, and God only knows what it is
  • a dreidel (in pristine condition, and lost only the day before)

No dead bugs, no million dollar check made out to me, no Lost Ark of the Covenant, no Japanese people who don't know the war's over, . . . just a bunch of "floor junk." If I'd thought about it ahead of time, I might have placed something under there for the next family in this house to find . . . then again, the only thing the last family left me was an empty gift box in the attic, so . . .