Having so little imagination that we just couldn’t think of anything else to do, and since tearing up something seems to fit right in with contemporary definitions of patriotism, Randa and I started remodeling our kitchen on the weekend just before the Fourth of July. Seems an appropriate celebration of our house’s fiftieth year and an equally fit response to the lingering bit of Sixties’ style.

Lots of painting and panting, especially during that attic stint of running wire for new ceiling lights. Fortunately for me, I had the coolest morning in the last six weeks for that. Sure as Sam Hill, I wouldn’t want to be in that attic during these Dog Days of summer! Talk about instant heat stroke…

In spite of the triple digit readings, Saturday was the day slated for appliance delivery. Even though the guy showed up a couple of hours earlier than expected, we managed to get everything sorted out and with his good help, got the old refrigerator and gas range moved outside. While he was reassembling the new refrigerator—required when you have to bring one in through a thirty-inch opening—Randa and I rested in the TV room.

Soon after he left, there was a knock on the door, which gave me the chance to meet another neighbor. “Are you going to be selling your old stove?” she asked in a very polite manner. “Well,” I confessed, “Randa and I have been discussing that very question. We have another house in northeast Kansas and we were thinking about putting it in the basement up there.” I paused then, noting a look of disappointment on her face, then asked, “Do you know someone who needs one?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Some friends of ours. He is disabled, she works for the school district and they have five kids. Their oven just went out on them.”

Dim as I am and hot as it was on Saturday afternoon, I could still figure out a few things. One is that when an oven goes out on you, you never know when that rascal is going to come back. Some of them never do. Family is all in the living room, door is open, and that oven will just go right out and never look back.

Second thing is if you’re working for the school district instead of running it, you’re probably not making a ton of money. And with five kids… seriously, you’re probably not ordering a brand new stove on impulse. Randa and I figured having a good stove sitting in a basement to be used twice a year wasn’t nearly as good from the stewardship angle as having it working like a Missouri mule in the kitchen of a seven-member family.

And so it was that our newly met neighbor came back over a couple of hours later with her son and potential daughter-in-law and took the stove. Ten minutes later, another knock on the door. The potential daughter-in-law smiled nervously and asked, “Do you want to get rid of the refrigerator, too?”

Old appliances gone, one or two other families blessed and I didn’t have to load, drag or lift any old appliances on a scorching July afternoon. The Lord does work in wonderful ways, now doesn’t he?

H. Arnett
7/25/17