My Stove

It's taken me thirty-plus years to understand my body. Like when you've got a temperamental camping stove that needs just the right TLC to get the thing started. One burner might appear to be broken, but in actually just needs a set of pliers to turn the gas, and the match has to be held just right, and, so on and so forth...

Wait - I'm not done. My cook stove isn't one of those trendy little two-burner hotties you find in chi-chi outdoor stores. It's a four-burner, sausage chili, eggs, bacon, coffee pot affair. And it suits me. Do you know me? You must know how I like to play things that are hard and physical. I prefer to be bruised and scraped. Mornings in which I awake pain-free and fresh are a disappointment. Clean and unblemished campstoves are for debutantes and wannabes. My stove looks like it survived the Oregon Trail, and can still cook up a mean-ass elk steak with a side of something brown. When I go camping with the other ladies (i.e. changing into my Speedo at the water slides), the women I respect probably check out the goods and nod knowingly, if not aprreciatively. The little two-burners turn up their noses and smirk, but then hide their unused and ineffective stoves behind designer towels. No dings? No burnt remnants of ten-year-old trout omelettes? Yeah, I'd hide that shit too. Pshht - probably can't even boil water. (Yesterday in the grocery store Madeleine was sitting under the shopping cart and announced to the entire produce section, "Mommy why are you always beat up?", which is only slightly better than the time I was trying on some shoes at Bob Wards, and in response to my removal of my rank running shoes she called out, "Mommy your 'gina stinks.")

But I have to say, each month there comes a time that throws everything out of whack. The burners don't start, the latch sticks and the cover doesn't close properly, the card table tips over spilling singed oatmeal all over everything. You know. I should recognize the warnings, but it's always a sneak attack. This month, however, I think I got it. It's probably a good indicator of what's to come, when Brett Favre's routine touchdown pass makes me cry. Well yeah, it's the record and all, but, it's a football game. Although, it was his 421st, after they'd just shown the highlights of the Monday Night game after his dad died, and then Marino spoke, and then. Now I'm tearing up again. Okay, the first time may have been legit, but these tears? Clearly time to head to the drugstore. SOS pads.