A Smack and a Crack

Good thing she's so cute!

Since Shell is Pouring out Her Heart today, I thought I might do a little confessing for Princess. So a few days ago I was standing near the toaster, waiting for my toast to pop. My brain was somewhere else or I was snoozing, one or the other, when a loud cr-a-a-a-ck snapped me back to reality. I looked around for the guilty party and Princess was standing about 5 feet away, holding a metal yardstick in her hand. She was snickering, “I always wanted to do that!” “What?” I asked, “Give me a heart attack?”

She was not apologetic. “Well,” she explained, “My teacher loves to give us a jumpstart just to see if we are awake. I thought you might need one too.” I buttered my toast and mumbled, “Next time, don’t hit the cooktop. That thing is made out of ceramic and you could crack it.” I glanced over to where she had smacked. “You DID crack it!” I accused. Suddenly the smile was gone from her face and mine.


Sure enough, right between the two front burners was a crack about the size of a quarter. It wasn’t funny anymore. My sweetie was NOT going to be happy about this. “You get to explain this one to your dad,” I remarked. “I can’t possibly keep you out of trouble this time.” Tears pooled up in her eyes. “I had no idea that could break,” she mumbled.

It took two days before I finally broke down and pointed out the crack to my sweetie. As predicted, he was not amused. But he kept his cool and decided that perhaps we could repair the crack. He bought sandpaper and filler, but while we were at the store, somehow the crack broke through and snaked its way along the cooktop.

We spent an hour at Lowe’s on Saturday, looking through all of the choices and then finally finding one on clearance for $346. “Princess needs a job,” my sweetie commented. We lugged the cooktop home and it spent the rest of the weekend occupying most of the back of my van. Now it rests in a place of honor on my bathtub.


I know, it could have been in by now and I could be cooking again. The problem is that once my sweetie realized he was getting a new cooktop, he suddenly decided that he needed to do something with those awful countertops. During similar crazy episodes, three huge burn marks had singed the laminate. And so we have begun a massive repair project.

Tomorrow I get to move everything off the kitchen counters including a rather large fish tank. My sweetie has already started sanding and puttying. Since we can’t afford real granite, we are going to put a faux finish on the existing countertops. Then and only then will my sweetie replace the cooktop. He promised three days…but then I caught him eyeing the finish on the cabinets…it might be a LONG three days.