The Infamous Mother’s Day
Kasia June 25th, 2008
My beloved reminded me in the combox about Dogdini and DJ of a particular DJ story that just screams for its own post. What can I do - I aim to please… 
Several years ago, when my mother still lived in Detroit, TBS had a brilliant idea for Mother’s Day. And I mean it: it was really a great idea.
We had been in the habit of ordering Pizza Papalis (mmm…) for Mother’s Day. It was quite popular, but also quite expensive. TBS said, “Why don’t we cook her a nice meal for Mother’s Day instead? It can be less expensive AND more thoughtful.”
I thought that was a lovely idea, but there were two big drawbacks. One, we both lived in small apartments and didn’t really have room for guests. Two, I was even less proficient a cook then than I am now.
“No problem,” said my intrepid seester. “I’ll handle most of it. I’ll do the prep work at home, and the grocery shopping; and then you cut me a check for your share and help with what needs to be done at Mom’s.”
So she spent her weekend chopping and dicing and slicing and otherwise slaving over a hot countertop, and on Mother’s Day she came over with the lamb chops and the side dishes and whatnot, all ready for last steps. I came over with myself and my checkbook.
First TBS discovered we had to scrub out the broiler, because my mother (and you can bet this is where I get my propensity to do things like this) had apparently forgotten to do that the last time she used it.
Then TBS instructed me on how to start the broiler and put the lamb chops in. In all things, I am her sous chef. The most complicated thing I think I’ve ever done on a project with her is knead dough (which I think I’m actually pretty good at - I learned from my beloved) when we made stollen. Meanwhile, she’s bopping around the kitchen doing all sorts of kitchen-madonna type of things, and instructing me on something else to do after.
After a short time we notice an odd smell.
We wonder what it is, but dismiss it.
It grows stronger.
For some inexplicable reason, it occurs to one of us to have me check the oven.
There is a giant blue blob in the oven. I have no idea what it is. I shout, perplexed and frustrated, “Who left a candle in the oven?!?”
My mother comes running and looks.
It’s not a candle. It is the dishpan they keep their recycling in. The plastic dishpan they keep their recycling in.
Now, you may be wondering why my mother would keep her recycling in a plastic dishpan, much less put that plastic dishpan into the oven. That’s a fair question.
She kept her recycling in the dishpan because it was easily stored and moved to places where DJ the incorrigible Brittany spaniel couldn’t get to it and chew up all the recycling.
But she didn’t usually keep the plastic dishpan in the oven. (Of course not. That would be silly.)
She usually kept it in the microwave.
It was not in the microwave that fateful Mother’s Day. She had moved it out of the microwave to use the microwave for something, and we, her unsuspecting daughters, did not think to ask “Mom, is there, perhaps, some chance that you might have put it into the oven for safekeeping?”
In fairness and in hindsight, I should have checked the oven before turning the broiler on. I usually check the oven before preheating it; it just didn’t occur to me to do so when using the broiler.
In equal fairness and hindsight, it was probably not one of my mother’s more intelligent decisions to put a plastic dishpan into the oven for safekeeping, especially when she knew other people were coming over to use her kitchen.
The lamb chops had melted plastic drizzled onto them, but we scraped it off and finished cooking them on the grill. They were salvageable. The oven, on the other hand, was not salvageable.
We had to air out the house and put DJ outside (where he tried desperately to get at the grill with the lamb chops). The cats hid in the basement, so we had to hope and pray that they didn’t asphyxiate from the fumes before the house was fully aired.
Poor TBS. She worked like a maniac trying to make a nice Mother’s Day, and that’s what happened. She was…shall we say , less than happy? I felt awful for her.
By the time dinner was ready the house was not yet fully aired, so we ate al fresco at a card table in my mother’s back yard, to the sounds of neighbor kids playing basketball and neighbor parents good-naturedly asking why we were having an outdoor dinner.
The oven was ruined. My mother had to buy herself a new stove for Mother’s Day.
And all because she had a Brittany spaniel.
