An unfortunate incident

We had a most unfortunate accident at our house this morning, but fortunately no one was hurt. As my wife and I survey the damage, wondering how it could have happened, experts have explained it to our satisfaction. They have impressive credentials.

I was cooking sausage in a frying pan. The heat from the fires underneath apparently weakens the steel they use to make burners so that it begins to bend. Even though the burners, partially made of tungsten, do not melt until they reach a temperature of 3,100 degrees, the fire marshall explained that the weight of the fry pan caused parts of it to slowly give way. The sausage had inexplicably collected on the NE side of the pan, and as I walked by, I dropped a knife I was using to cut up green pepper and onions, and it hit that side of the pan.

The impact, coupled with the disproportionate weight in the NE side of the pan, coupled with a weakening of the alloy that holds the metal in one piece, caused part of the burner to buckle. It was a perfect storm.

What followed was chaos. The burner gave way, and underneath, those parts of the range unit and countertop that were made of pot metal and granite easily gave way too. Boom pa boom pa boom pa boom! I captured parts of the collapse on video, and can see that even as the sausage was peacefully cooking on the top, and before I dropped the knife, down underneath in that drawer that holds pots and pans we forget to use (along with a grate of some kind used for something or other) there is a perceptible vibration. Apparently, the unsettled sausage on the burner and the uneven weight on the fry pan has caused a minor explosion down in that drawer. You can see my camera visibly shaking, and mice running out from under the stove.

But it is hard to understand it all, given the rubble. The stove collapsed, and not even chards of metal remain. Our kitchen is full of dust, but we are told it’s perfectly safe to be in there. The dining island in the middle of the room collapsed under its own weight, even though we do not cook there and it is several feet from the stove. (The dropped knife did not strike the island.)

The island was apparently hit by debris from the oven, and that initiated a series of small flames that eventually brought the island down in its own footprint. It’s been hours and the fire fighters have dumped gallons of water, but still we have burning wires and molten tungsten burners, and some leveling screws underneath the stove are shaven off as if they had been cut in two!

We bought the house a mere few months ago, and have had people coming in and weekends to secure our cooking facilities. Neighbors wondered why the traffic at odd hours, but we did not want to disrupt normal household activities. We’re new owners and we’re on an odd schedule.

We’ve filed an insurance claim, of course, and the insurance company, the bastards, want to apply two deductibles, saying the collapse of the stove and the dining island are two separate incidents. Like, yeah.

See you in court.

We’re going to put in a new stove, one so beautiful that dinner guests will soon forget about the old one, a monstrosity that was made in the 1960’s. The new stove will have a magnificent hood that extends through our ceiling and into the sky, offering tribute to all those little sausage we cooked that day and forgot to eat due to the ensuing disaster. But we know exactly how many there were: Eight of the little bastards. If only we could have found those darned sizzlers. We loved them so!

We also spoke to GE, who made the stove. They say that they’ve been making range top burners since 1872, and never once has a burner collapsed due to the heat, much less taking down and entire range and countertop as well.

First time for everything, they said.