Oven Blew Up

Parker Young

One day, our oven blew up. No food was inside, so we didn’t miss a meal, but still it was a problem. We put in another oven. That oven blew up too. We gave up on ovens altogether and put an armoire full of knick-knacks there. The armoire blew up. Exploded might be a more accurate verb. Now we were really puzzled. We put a drying rack there. Explosion. Perhaps we should not put anything else there, I said. Then Uncle Jim came over, and during his visit he must have stood right where the drying rack used to be. He exploded. This made us angry. I called the landlord. He couldn’t remember who we were or which property of his we lived on. I gave him the address and he hung up right away. He never returned my subsequent calls. We may have to move, I explained to the kids. Why? they said. When I explained it all, they became upset, the news shocked them, because as usual they hadn’t been paying attention. Don’t worry, I said, none of us will ever explode. But they didn’t believe me. If you’re so sure, they said, prove it. I looked to my wife for support. Yeah, she said, prove it. She started crying. Uncle Jim walked in. We thought he had died.