We were typing up lists of product codes for appliances to order for our kitchen renovation project, also known as "I can't believe you've been using drawers held together with duct tape for over three years."
Turns out, I kind of like major appliances. We are ordering all stainless-steel major manufacturer, middle-of-the-road kind of equipment, nothing too fancy, but attractive and functional and all that. We are presently using a 25-year-old Hotpoint double-oven with only one working oven, the small upper module. The lower oven has a quirk I call "500 or nothing," meaning that it kicks on at about 500 degrees Fahrenheit and not before, then scorches the hell out of everything. We found this out the hard way our first Thanksgiving.
The duct tape reference wasn't hyperbole, either - we really do have drawers held together by duct tape and prayer. So it's time for a major facelift - wood cabinets, bamboo floors, a backsplash, all that HGTV crap that I for some reason always watch, wide-eyed and rapt.
And those handsome stainless steel appliances. The real disappointment is the oven/range because we love to cook, and gas is the only real way to cook, but our condo only allows for electric stoves. Many stores stock fewer than three electric models anymore; all anyone wants is gas. I was losing hope.
Then I saw a Viking ceramic-top electric range at P.C. Richard & Son tonight. Sooner than you could say "Pavlov," I began to salivate. It is the apotheosis of the electric stove, muscular and metropolitan, like a Mondrian canvas brought into three dimensions. Behold its glory and tremble, ye mortals, before the fiery blast of its iron heart!
I was getting carried away.
At this point I should tell you that our stove budget is somewhere between $500.00 and $1,000.
I located a sales associate: "How much for the Viking?"
"Five thousand dollars."
"Thanks!" I said, barely stifling the heartbreak.
So ... we left P.C. Richard & Son (losers didn't even have a consolation prize, i.e, a Wii, for me, though that hasn't stopped me from asking everywhere we go - I'm almost at the point where I'll stop at a falafel stand in midtown and ask when the next shipment is coming in - and we're not so debased to pay the $700 (!) that Colony Music wants. We/Wii will have to wait.)
We made one last stop tonight, at COSTCO, and that would not have been very interesting (no stoves, no Wii), save for a very weird landmark in their parking lot. We were driving out when all of a sudden Kelly (whom I sometimes call "Eagle-Eye McCormick") put the car in reverse and said, "take a look at that."
On our right, protruding from the wall of rock that leads up to Stew Leonard's, was a hulking granite tombstone, mostly covered in green tarp and duct tape (the universal constant, it would seem!)
Below the tarp we could just make out the traditional Hebrew inscription for "May the soul be bound up in the bond of life everlasting" and the year "2006."
Why is there a giant Jewish gravestone in the middle of the Yonkers Costco parking lot?
For the answer to that question, stay tuned to my blog!
PS - The title of this posting is taken from "A TOKEN OF MY EXTREME" from the Frank Zappa rock opera "Joe's Garage." Dan Saltzstein, you were right.
