0
0
A month before we got married, Paul moved into our starter apartment — just a one-room basement apartment with a tiny closet-like kitchen. We didn’t have a lot of supplies in our tiny kitchen — which was fine, since we wouldn’t have had any place to store them, anyway — so we had to make do.
I was determined to make the best of the situation, though, so I decided, on my first afternoon there, to make a nice dinner. I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen, making sure that everything would be perfect.
When the meal was ready, I realized that I had no way of getting the pan out of the oven, so I reached for a dishtowel. Before I could get the pan out, my hand touched the top rack, and I screamed out a few unrepeatable words as my skin stung and throbbed. By the time Paul got home, dinner was on the table, and the skin on my hand was blistered.
Fortunately, Paul’s aunt gave me an oven mitt as a shower gift. It was the most exciting of all of my gifts — at least I wouldn’t burn my hand again. That afternoon, I proudly brought my new oven mitt to the apartment and put it in a prominent place in the little kitchen — so I could reach for it in any potentially skin-burning situation.
After the wedding, Paul and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen together. In fact, some of our best moments have been spent in the kitchen — Paul chopping the vegetables and me cooking the chicken. We quickly found that we liked to experiment and try new recipes. And my oven mitt was always there to help.
One night, when one of our creations was finished, I donned the mitt and pulled the pan out of the oven. I set it on the stove to admire it, and Paul gasped. Yes, I thought, it is breathtaking, isn’t it? I looked over at Paul to share our proud moment and noticed that he was wide-eyed and staring at the mitt. Little did I know that my hand was spouting flames. The top of the mitt had somehow caught fire and was glowing like a torch. I shrieked and waved my hand around frantically until the fire went out.
Paul and I laughed at the charred mitt. It was okay to laugh — no one had gotten hurt. The apartment hadn’t burned down. And we were about to eat a great meal. I took off the mitt and set it back in its place of honor.
It wasn’t long until it happened again. Paul and I were standing in front of the oven together, waiting for our latest creation to come out of the oven. When we decided that it was perfect, I put on our slightly-charred oven mitt and reached for the dish. Once again, I set the dish on the stove to admire. Once again, Paul let out a gasp.
This time, my thumb was on fire. I shrieked again and waved my hand around the kitchen — almost hitting Paul in my process — and put out the fire. We chuckled again as we studied the charred remains of the oven mitt. I handed it to Paul and retreated to the other room to set the table.
When I returned to the kitchen, Paul was still standing in front of the oven. He was studying the mitt, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“This thing sure has been through a lot,” he commented. “It’s even got these little spiral lines on it.” He showed me one side of the mitt, which was decorated with a black spiral pattern that looked a lot like the spiral pattern of our electric burners.
“Oh, no,” I sighed. “Did I do that?”
Paul shook his head and grinned. “No. I did. I just set it down for a minute, but I guess the burner was still hot.”
I shook my head as I studied the mitt’s scars. It was covered in black charred marks and white batting — where the outside fabric had completely burned away. But I assessed it and decided that it was still usable — just as long as I didn’t touch anything hot with the top of my hand or my thumb.
That week, Paul and I were wandering through the grocery store when I spotted a rack of brand new, char-free oven mitts. I took one down and admired it.
“Look, Honey! It’s only $2!” I called out to Paul, who was still studying the laundry detergent. “Should we get one?”
“Nah,” he answered, shaking his head. “We haven’t totally destroyed ours yet. We should probably wait.”
He was right, I decided. It would probably be best to stick with our training mitt until we could be trusted to take care of a new one.
