Cleaning with gas

	Cleaning with gas
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"Hi, Mom."

"Robert? Is that you?"

"Mom, of course it's me, your first-born son, the one that moved away from home to live in Saskatchewan, remember?"

"Well, I wasn't expecting you to call during the day. This must be costing you a fortune!"

"Yeah, Mom, but my girlfriend is coming over for supper, and my stove is acting up."

"Acting up? How?"

"It's a gas stove, and the flame's a lot higher on one side than the other."

"You mean one element has more gas pressure? Some of the old ones don't equalize the gas pressure too well when you have all four burners on full blast. Camp stoves are also bad for that."

"No, Mom. that's not what I meant. I turn on one element, and the flames are real high on one side of the pot, and just normal sized, or a bit smaller, on the other side. And I can't turn it below half way or the flame goes out."

"Oh! That! That means the stove needs cleaning. Didn't your landlord clean your apartment before you moved in?"

"Not really."

"Why did you rent a place like that?"

"It was cheap, Mom. Student accommodation. And I don't have a job right now. And Mom?"

"What's that, son?"

"What kind of dish soap do you use?"

"Ivory Liquid."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You mean you don't have any dish soap? How do you do any cleaning?"

"Mom, I've been looking for work. And I've only been here a week."

Well, I rushed right out and bought the Ivory Liquid. They didn't have it at the corner store, so I had to walk eight blocks to the nearest supermarket. By the time I got back, my girlfriend was due to arrive, so I started on the cleaning right away. I washed the stove top and got most of the marks off the enamel. I cleaned all the burnt junk off the black parts that holds up the pot over the element.

I looked and, sure enough, there was a half inch of dehydrated food and ash under the element. It took a good five minutes to clean that up, and I was only done the left front burner. It was awkward reaching under the element, and I noticed that if I pushed on the pipe leading to the element, it moved, so I put it back in place very carefully. I was just finished with that element when my girlfriend arrived.

Just about the first thing she did was ask about the stove. "Did you talk to the landlord about the stove yet?"

"No. Couldn't find him. So I called Mom. She said the stove must need cleaning. So I cleaned the top of the stove and the area under the left front element. Let's try it."

So I turned on the left front element full blast: and it came up with six inches of flame on the left, almost singing my hair, and a little bit of flame on the right.

My girl friend walked purposefully over to the stove. "Right. When I phoned my mom, she said the same thing, but she also made it clear that the part that needs cleaning is the part that moves the gas around. That side's hot, so I'll try the other one."

She reached into the top of the stove and wiggled a bit, and carefully pulled out both the right hand elements and some shaped metal tubes joining them together.

"This is what needs cleaning. You have to get it really dry before you put it back in. And this makes it easier to clean the area under the elements."

I looked at the pipes in amazement and admiration and all I could say was, "No wonder the other one wiggled when I was cleaning around it."

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