On Saturday, two people to be identified only as teenager X and young adult Y were tussling over a glass of water and somehow the glass got launched in the air and spilled down the back of the stove, shorting the whole thing out.

After several hours with a hair dryer at the back of the stove, we faced facts. The stove was not going to snap back to life no matter how much drier it got. Flipping the breaker in the basement was also not going to bring new life to the old beast. So, we called the Sears repair people and were told that the first available service person could make a call on July 2nd.

July 2nd. Fourteen days. I will spare you a graphic description of MY reaction to the news that I would be running a kitchen for seven adult sized people for two weeks without benefit of a stove. After my meltdown, I went to my sink and somehow the view from there consoled me a bit.

As did the thought that maybe if there was no stove, there might not be any dishes either.

Three days into seven people sharing a toaster oven, a crock pot and an electric fry pan, I can tell you two things for sure:

#1 There is very little that can’t be cooked in an electric fry pan.

AND

#2 Having no stove makes entirely no difference in the creation of dirty dishes.