Oven Drama

Don't you hate when you try to fix something, and because you don't know what you're doing, you screw it up even more? That seems to be the story of my life.

Our oven light burned out a while back, and being the aspiring home improvement guru (or was it real man?) that I am, I figured it would be a breeze to fix. It's just a light bulb, right? Who cares if it's deep within a crawl space that only our kids could fit into.

The problem is, all I had to do is loosen a latch and remove the cover to replace the bulb. Of course, not realizing this, I tried to unscrew the entire housing, and ended up breaking the bulb. Not only that, but as the housing came out, the gasket frayed a little. Based on our previous experience with the front deck, my first thought was "asbestos." Damn, I just contaminated our oven. Quick, evacuate the premises!

In the end, it wasn't asbestos, at least that's what the geniuses told me at Sears, or should I say, that's what they read to me on their monitor. So while I was relieved, I still had to deal with that bulb. Because it was broken, I couldn't simply unscrew and replace it. And because the gasket was frayed, I assumed I'd have to pull the whole thing out and replace it. That meant the oven was out of commission until who knows when.

Enter my wife R, the fountain of sage wisdom, who suggested I just screw the housing back in and stuff the frayed edges back in. Wow, why didn't I think of that? After I did that, I was able to unscrew the broken bulb with some pliers, and we were back in business. Sure, the light still doesn't work, but I've often found that you're better off being working in the dark. That way you don't see the things you screwed up, or least they don't look as bad..

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Jenny Rollo for the pic.