procrastination

My oven’s being cleaned right now. Actually, it’s being chemically treated right now and in a few minutes I am going to don a mask and attempt to clean it. I don’t know what I was thinking as I removed a pan from the oven a few nights ago… and sort of flung the contents of the broiler pan onto the oven floor. And the door. My family came running… thinking that perhaps I’d set up the barbecue in the kitchen and was grilling their dinner.

Since then, I’ve used the oven and have been reminded of the error of my ways. A few times.

I have attempted the vinegar and water, the baking soda and water routine to clean the oven… and I never have significant results. So… it’s the cleaner in a can and part of a roll of paper towels. I don’t mind cleaning the oven, really, I just know that it’s one of those necessary evils… like cleaning behind and under the fridge or cleaning under and behind bunk-beds… or pulling stuff out of back-packs. You know… the backpack you find a couple of weeks after its last use. You sort of squint and unzip the zipper… holding your breath as you remove things. And food. Then you wonder how you could’ve missed those odiferous items for that many days. It’s times like that that I say to myself… how long have you been doing this and saying this is absolutely the *last* time you will open an aged backpack? That and picking up an item off the floor and immediately bringing it to my nose to smell if it’s clean.

I don’t know why I do it. And you probably don’t know why you do it either. You probably say the same thing, too. And you probably procrastinate cleaning your oven. Like I’ve just done.