I think I mentioned a while back that my oven went kaput a couple of weeks ago. I called a company listed in the phonebook only because they were in my city and advertised that they work on Dacor stoves.

I think I made a mistake.

Before he came out- the broiler and the convection oven worked. The regular oven didn't work.

So the first time 'annoying little man' and sidekick (I'm assuming is his son who looks to be about 14) comes to my house, I get an earful about how he could have warned me before I bought a dacor. "They're nothing but trouble."

Dude! I didn't know you when I bought this house, and in summing you up, not sure I'd ever ask you for your opinion.

Anyhoocares, he said it was the heating element. He also said that he'd have to replace that with a kit because Dacor recalled the original parts or something like that. He also had to replace all my burners because none of them would light without me using a lighter. All of this to the tune of $850.00. Yeah.

OK, I justified it because basically I was getting a brand new stove and oven and the thing is worth almost 5,000.00 new.

Annoying little man came back today with the parts and proceeds to take apart my oven. While he's working on this, sidekick decides that it's OK to mess around with my refrigerator. You see, it has a little tiny door in the middle of it so you can just grab milk and not open the whole fridge (I rarely use it). As he opened it and looked inside, I thought to myself, "who does this?" Then he asked what the little door was for, so I told him.

What does he do next? Opens the big refrigerator door and looks inside. Again, who does this?

Annoying little man then closes everything back up and turns on the breaker. He proceeds to show me how great my new burners are (yay!) and then tries to head up the new oven.

It's dead. Oh, and so is the convection oven now. AND the broiler. All of it DEAD.

Annoying little man scratches his head. "Hmmm, I don't know why it's doing this. Maybe it shorted out." "Or maybe your wiring went bad."

I'm thinking to myself, "or maybe you're an idiot?"

He then says that he needs to go order more parts. If it's what he thinks it is, it'll be another 400.00. But it might be (can't remember what he said it might be). Then went on to say, "Gee, I hope you're not hosting Thanksgiving".

"Guess what? I am", I said.

His reply? "Wow, that sucks". "Well, I'll give you a call when I figure this out", and then hightailed it out the door leaving all my old oven parts sitting in the middle of the floor.

I dunno, but I have a feeeeeelllllling that I'm not going to hear from him again.

I planned to bake cookies this weekend to celebrate my new oven. Guess not.

I also guess that I'm not baking pies or rolls for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness I have a roaster for the turkey.

Am I upset? Of course not. I immediately called my sister and laughed hysterically over the phone. I mean really, in the grand scheme of things- this is hilarious because of the timing of it all.

All I can do is laugh. I'm still laughing.

(do you think that means that I've gone insane?)