Antique hard to throw away

Sue Clark

“Yikes!” I said to my realtor when I bought the house in Newport

Heights. Even in 1995, the kitchen stove was a quasi-antique.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “It would look good in our cabin

at Mammoth.” He ran an admiring hand over the stainless steel pancake

grill between the burners.

“But it’s so ... well, so red,” I said. This was a ‘50s style

O’Keefe & Merritt stove. I checked the burners. Perfect working

order. Good, I could heat up my low-fat frozen enchilada dinners.

“What’s this?” I asked him. Opposite the oven, which also worked

fine, was a weird barbecue-like contraption, accessed by opening an

oven-like door.

“That’s a Grillerator,” he said.

Not being mechanically minded, I determined never to cook any of

my Smart Ones Frozen Pizzas on the Grillerator.

“The Grillerator,” I mused. “Sounds like an Arnold movie.”

In love with the little house already, I squinted at the kitchen,

awash in tones of ivory and gray. The flooring, cabinets and

appliances were all neutral in color. However, the stove was

blatantly red. Chili-pepper red. Fire-engine red.

Fires-of-the-underworld red.

If ever a stove had left-wing tendencies, this one did. It so

dominated the room that the rest of the small kitchen appeared to

tilt toward the stove. Toward the left, of course.

In the enjoining months, I attempted to accessorize the room. I

ended up buying red-white and blue towels, placemats, and chair

cushions to balance the “Alpha Stove.” This annoyed me, because I’m

actually not a fan of this patriotic color statement. I just wanted a

neutral kitchen like all the other people in Newport Heights had.

Over the years I’ve lived here, the stove never fails to command

fear and awe. Each workman has stopped and said, “Whoa! Cool stove.”

Each of my friends has, too.

“Want to buy it?” I would quickly ask every interested party.

“Naw. Too heavy to move. Wouldn’t blend with my decor. But it sure

is cool,” were among the excuses.

I tried having the thing painted white. I called metal painters,

stove and antique stores. No luck. The process was cost-prohibitive,

and one company said impossible because of heat factors.

I called my Alabama friends Errol and Sonny, who are furniture

aficionados. Their take was that the stove wasn’t old enough to be an

antique, but had a certain vintage charm. It might be worth

something.

“Just like me!” I told Errol. He didn’t deny this with the

vehemence I had hoped for.

Now I’ve sold my house and I’m looking to downsize. The place I’m

going to rent for a while already has a stove. It would be perfect in

the funky little rental, but it’s too heavy to haul around with me as

I rent and then ultimately purchase a house.

Yet when my friend, Dave asked me if he could buy the stove, I

said, “ “No, I want it.” Just like a 3-year-old who won’t play with

her blocks but doesn’t want you to have them.

The stove and I appear to have developed a history. For example,

I’ve baked about 75 cakes in the oven for a weekly get-together I go

to. I’ve probably heated up 1,500 frozen dinners, until I got a new

microwave which has a “frozen dinner” setting.

I suppose I will have to sell it, if I can figure out how much

it’s worth.

Or maybe I can just hire Vlad to haul it around for me. Vlad is

one of my students. He’s a gym addict and football player. I call him

the Vladiator. He’s picked up other football players at my school as

easily as lifting a five-pound weight. I’ve seen this happen. He

could probably just throw the stove over his mighty shoulder and

carry it to my new place.

The Vladiator carrying the Grillerator. I can picture it now. Now

there’s a visual I do like.