A Dirty Job

As far as bachelors go, I'm quite a bit more domestic than a lot of guys out there. I clean regularly and I cook perhaps better than most. I can cook at least as well as any of the women I've dated, better than some I suppose. Nonetheless, I'm still single...

Somehow one of the things I've never done in my 40-plus years, is clean an oven. I probably never would have either had it not been for the oven in my apartment filling the kitchen and living room with smoke and setting off the smoke alarm every time I've used it recently. Yep, I'm going to have to clean this thing. I didn't think I really used the oven that much as I do most of my cooking on the stove top. I guess two years of making pizzas, steaks or salmon filets now and again, along with a batch of slice-and-bake cookies and some other oven cooked things I've forgotten have left the inside of my oven walls covered in a smoke alarm triggering funk of brownish-blackness.

How hard can this be to clean right? Buy a can of oven cleaner, spray it on, wait a bit and wipe the mess away - right? Just to be sure, I ask a female friend if she's ever cleaned an oven.
"Yes - why?", my friend asks. Why? Because I'm hoping you'll be a dear and offer to come over and clean it for me? Actually that thought didn't occur to me until much later, and no, I wouldn't have asked. I just wanted to get a heads up on anything I needed to keep in mind or be careful of. What I got, was her simply telling me that there was basically nothing to it- spray the stuff on, leave it for a few hours and then wipe it off.

I ask her if I need to avoid spraying the cleaner on the heating element, she says no, that it's pretty hard to avoid that and not to worry about it. I don't believe her, and using my MacGyver logic, devise a plan to wrap the heating element in aluminum foil. I know that one of two things will happen if I don't do this: either the oven cleaner will corrode the heating element into an electrical fire hazzard, or it will infuse it with a toxic fake lemon scent. I cannot allow this to happen. I will not allow this to happen.

At the grocery store, I have three choices for the task at hand, all of them aerosol cans. The first is bargain brand at barely 1/4 the cost of the other two name brands. Since the bargain brand is so much cheaper, I decide that it can't possibly do a good job on my oven. As if the standard-issue, rental complex electric oven is something I'm proud of. The leading brand says "Fume-free" - looks like we have a winner folks!

Back at home in my kitchen, it's on. I open the oven and cover the heating element with strips of foil. It's a damn good thing I did too, because the instructions say not to spray the cleaner on things like heating elements as it could result in the heating element being damaged. See? I know, good thinking, right? For those of you watching at home, it uhm, takes around ten strips of aluminum foil to completely cover the heating element.

Now I'm ready to let this oven know I mean business. I douse the oven walls with the leading national brand - liberally. I notice the white foam soon turns to a brownish bubbling mass of foam. I decide that I cannot afford to take a passive stance with this mess and I spray the living shit out of the inside of my oven - poetic justice being served for it setting off a very hard to reach smoke alarm - take that oven - you shall exist in a state of greasy brown/black funk no more!

After a while...never mind how long, I open the door and take a damp sponge to the greasy lemony scented foam. Hmm...seems to work pretty well, though I would've thought that more would come off after....after...20 minutes? Has it only been 20 minutes? I give the door another dousing of cleaner and tell myself I'm not touching the oven for at least two hours.

On the phone with my mom, I casually mention that I'm cleaning my oven. The only advice she offers? "Leave it on for quite awhile."

Well of course...I know that. It's not like I'm going to try and wipe it off after like, 20 minutes - again.

Nearly three hours later and this is where the fun stops. No one tells you this. This is the point where things start to suck. It is also the point of no return. You have to finish what you started.
Yes the oven walls will wipe clean with amazing ease, but that is of no comfort now. There is nothing comfortable about being on your hands and knees and wiping the inside of an oven. What wipes off so easily, is still inside your oven. While it's no longer stuck to the walls, it has now turned into a puddle of black-brown lemony-greasy scented funk that is surely toxic. Don't get it on you. Don't let it touch anything you want to keep. Make sure you remove every last drop of this stuff from the inside of your oven. No one tells you this - so I will. Oh, just to be safe, don't breathe the fumes - I'm pretty sure they'll make you retarded or dissolve one, or both of your lungs.

What the hell am I supposed to do with this mess? How will I get it out of the oven? Won't it eat through whatever I put it in? Do I need to go back to the store and buy a container that says "Biohazard Material" on it? Sponges seem unable to absorb this toxic puddle, paper towels aren't any better. I decide I've got to act fast and grab some empty plastic containers to put the biohazard liquid in - quickly! I can't have much time with this stuff. I've got to get it out of my apartment, because soon it will eat holes through everything. Let the fact that it will eat through the apartment dumpster in the parking lot be someone else's problem. If anyone asks me if I threw this toxic mess into the complex dumpsters, I'll simply say no.

All this is in the front of the oven. The entrance to the cave, if you will. Further inside the cave, I start to realize just how nasty this job is. Thought it was nearly over didn't you? I know - me too. Now is when I realize that I may not be able to get all of this cleaner out of the oven - this is bad news because surely the oven will not be safe to use if I don't get every last bit of oven cleaner off the floor, ceiling and walls of my oven. Now is where I turn into an injured and struggling comic book super hero, struggling and straining to breathe, or see inside the cave and press on: ...Must...gasp...must finish...can't...see....fumes...making...me...dizzy...gasp...oven clean....must get...gasp...finish. If I can't do this, the oven will be a toxic hotbox that will fill my apartment with poisonous gasses as I preheat it to make my next pizza. No one tells you this.

Just as paranoia is setting in, I realize that a miner's hat with a light would let me see the spots that still need cleaned. At this moment, Paranoia's two friends, lower back pain/strain and knee pain arrive. Unwelcome guests, even at a cleaning party. No one tells you this. I think back to a time in my childhood when I noticed my mom cleaning her oven. I didn't give it much thought until I finished cleaning my own oven. Funny how now it seems like childbirth would be easier to go through than the dirty job of cleaning an oven. So for every time you cleaned an oven and none of us noticed, THANK YOU MOM!

Oh I finished the job alright - though I wish I could say that I'm confident that I got every last bit of the greasy cleaner foam - which is toxic remember, out of my oven and that it's now safe to use. I'm not so sure, maybe I can live off things that I can cook using only the four burners on top of my oven, at least for a month or two, however long it takes for the oven to be safe again. No one tells you this.