It's 7:12pm and weather.com tells me the temperature outside is 77 degrees (which doesn't sound very hot at all but it's a wonder what a little humidity can do). I am sitting on my couch feeling sticky and sweaty and quite miserable, and I have just made an important discovery: cleaning the oven is just about the worst thing you can do with a midsummer evening. In fact, cleaning the oven is just about the worst thing you can do period.
You may already know this⎯ that is, you may have already subjected yourself to the task of ridding your own wretched furnace of baked-on batter and other unidentified black cement and therefore understand the horrors of which I speak. If not, I doubt that my words will do the experience justice.
Now you may be thinking that I was crazy to undertake this task on an evening in July in the first place, but I let me assure you that I came to the descision through a combination of naivete and gross misinformation⎯ the first piece of which was the name of the oven cleaner itself: "Easy-Off." In retrospect, the makers of said cleaner may want to rename their product "Maybe-if-you-repeat-steps-one-
through-six-four-times,sticking-your-entire-upper-body-into-a-
furnace-like-cavern-and-scrubbing-till-your-fingers-ache,some-of-it-
will-come-Off." That's merely a suggestion; I leave it to the marketing gurus to figure out the exact wording. In any case, I came upon the can of "Easy"-Off under my sink, after having already put a few hours of good ol' fashioned elbow grease into really shining up my kitchen.
I will take a moment to tell you how proud I was of myself at said point. I really really detest cleaning; I grew up without having to lift a finger so the merits and joys of scrubbing myself into oblivion and spending the better part of the day covered in Comet are still a bit beyond me. Regardless, I know one must, as a responsible adult (or at least as someone trying desperately to keep up the appearance of a responsible adult), maintain one's living space, so I feel a tiny swell of pride every time I force myself to dig in and Swiff like I've never Swiffed before in the name of cleanliness⎯ and perhaps by association, Godliness. Despite my aversion to all things chore-related, when I finally put my mind to it I go all out; I get down on my hands and knees and clean those baseboards with the best of them.
It was with this can-do attitude that I regarded the oven cleaner in my cabinet. I'd already washed the fridge from top to bottom, so why not tackle the oven as well? A few months ago I'd hired someone to come give my place a really thorough scrubdown (when did I have the money for that?) and the Easy-Off had been on the extensive list of cleaning products that she'd instructed me to have on hand before her arrival⎯ apparently half a bottle of Fantastik and a roll of paper towels wasn't going to cut it. She even mentioned this particular product by name, which really makes me wonder about the other oven cleaners out there. Do they somehow make the oven dirtier? Anyway, I did as I was told and vaguely remember the oven being kind of clean at one point but since then the yellow canister had gone unnoticed, hiding behind the dish soap (hey, I said I was trying, okay?). It's only now that I truly appreciate why cleaning services charge so much for their work⎯ I had no idea what I was getting into.
I started off with high hopes⎯ again I will point out that when a product is called "Easy-Off" you want oh so much to believe in it, as well-conditioned consumers are wont to do. I have to admit at this juncture that I'm more of a "skimmer" than an avid reader when it comes to directions- I mean, you figure you've read one household cleaning product label you've read 'em all, right? I notice the can says "wear long rubber gloves," which I decide to interpret as "wear rubber gloves." It also tells me to heat up the oven to 200 degrees before spraying the stuff inside. Okay, makes sense. I remove the oven racks as instructed, for "easier application." So far so good. Spray surfaces from a distances of 9-12 inches. Uh-huh. Can do.
I can't be exactly sure when things started to go downhill, but I think it was around the time I glimpsed the words "DANGER: Contains sodium hydroxide (LYE)" (you remember Fight Club, don't you? Where Brad Pitt burned Ed Norton's hand with the very same?) near the bottom of the can as the spray simultaneously fizzled and foamed up from the oven into a big ol' cloud of lye-filled mess and I inevitably inhaled some of it. It was at this point that I noticed another important piece of information on the can: avoid breathing spray mist. Okay! Well, maybe if you'd put that in red or made the can talk to me or something we wouldn't be having this little problem right now, Easy-Off!
Now, you may not know this but I can be a touch melodramatic every now and then so of course I'm convinced at this point that my esophagus is going to burn out, or at the very least that the fumes will asphyxiate me. I run out of the kitchen, take a breath and fly back in to throw the window open and turn on the fan. The fan seems to make things worse. Oh no! Did the lye get in my eye? Will I go blind as a result of my misguided attempts to rid the oven of wayward chocolate chips? The Easy-Off directions (I can still read- a good sign), which I have now decided warrant a bit more attention, tell me to "allow the foam to work for 5-10 minutes" before wiping the oven out with a wet cloth or sponge. This gives me about a sixth of an hour in which to contemplate my imminent demise. I decide to spend my last few moments on earth throwing open the rest of the windows and sealing off my room- the fumes haven't reached that far yet so I figure I can always retreat there if need be. Miraculously I survive the next 10 minutes and find upon cautiously re-entering the kitchen that most of the awful smell has dissipated. Things are looking up again. Then I open the door.
I now realize why the directions specifically demand long rubber gloves, namely so that you don't worry about sticking your arm in a pool of lye as you shove your entire torso into the oven in a vain attempt to scrub the "Easy-Off" (hah) from the far reaches of the confounded thing's top corners. This event marks the first time in my nearly two-year tenure in this apartment that I've actually been glad that my oven is too small for even a standard cookie sheet⎯ if it were any bigger I'd most certainly have gone the way of so many storybook witches.
The oven wasn't even on at this point but that didn't stop it from being friggin hot (stick your head into something that's nearly 200 degrees and tell me how you like it). The little scrubby cloth, which I dutifully rinsed over and over under the guidance of the Easy-Off powers-that-be, was starting to burn my fingers and steam rose from all surfaces of the cavernous beast that, though once merely a means to achieve the perfect cupcake, now threatened to burn my skin off through some combination of heat and corrosive chemicals. Not to mention that no matter how many times I scrubbed, rinsed, and scrubbed again the cloth seemed to come away as sickly brown and greasy as ever. I don't remember burning any animal sacrifices in there- how did this thing get so dirty? Then I remember the time I discovered a wayward cigarette butt under my stove's burner cover and I think perhaps I overpaid that cleaning service after all and that some of this oily filth is left over from the previous tenants. I feel a little better⎯ that is, until that thought fully settles in.
I silently praise God for my rubber gloves⎯ long or otherwise⎯ and look around at the kitchen to take in the big picture. The oven, while slightly cleaner, still has little mounds of unidentifed ashy blackness encrusted upon it and there are now drops of murky brown water all over the floor and surrounding trash bags where the scrubby cloth has dripped on its way to the sink. Hmm. Maybe that's why the good folks at Easy-Off kindly instructed me to "liberally spread newspaper under oven door and surrounding areas." Oops. And in between all this, an attempt to move one of the oven racks from the sink to a more convenient location (because my sink isn't even large enough for a dinner plate much less an oven rack) failed when⎯ by some miraculous twist of physics⎯ the rack managed to clatter to the floor and slide underneath the refrigerator, completely out of reach. The rack isn't all that much narrower than the space under the fridge, so I can't even imagine the forces that had to align to make this one possible. This is perfect. As if I'm really going to get down and face the space under the refrigerator⎯ stick my hand under there, even. No. I decide almost instantaneously that the rack will either come out by way of a hanger or will remain lost forever. I have my limits on where I will and will not stick my hands- I don't keep an official list, mind you, but I can say with certainty that "underneath objects that have not been moved in two years" falls solidly under "will not."
As is so often the case with ventures such as this, I am once again reminded of why I find an afternoon watching tv, googling people I know or standing in line at the DMV during lunch hour preferable to cleaning. Still, I suck it up and spray the oven door again (this time careful not to let the spray puff up into a big cloud of airborne corrosives), and within ten minutes the whole thing looks, if not perfect, at least reasonably well maintained. In defense of the good people at Easy-Off, I have to say that upon closer inspection I see that they offer a few methods for cleaning the oven, two of which don't require any heating of said oven. Then again, those methods require anywhere from 20 minutes to 12 hours to work so I'm holding fast to my claim that cleaning the oven seriously sucks. Still, they've done all they can to make the whole process a chemical-burn-free experience, and for that I say "thanks, Easy-Off."
And so I come away from the experience a little stickier but also a little wiser. Have I learned that hard work can be its own reward? That you truly can achieve some zen-like state in the throes of polishing? No way. Give me tv, a day at the beach or just the covers over my head over a dust rag any day. Who wants to Windex when you can grab some sorbet and watch all the "I Love Lucy" reruns you've tivoed while incessantly checking your email instead? Not I.
I have, however, learned another vital lesson, and that is always wipe the cookie dough up right away if it should spill . . . because that crap is one tough mother once it burns its sweet self onto your oven door. That, and always do what the "Easy-Off" people tell you. Their name may be a bit misleading, but they know how to make your experience with lye a pleasant one⎯ or, barring that, at least one that doesn't end in a trip to the ER or with a call to posion control.
I hope that my little story has enlightened you . . . and that the next time you hire a cleaning service you'll double-check the damn oven before you let them leave.
Bon soir!
