2233. The Candy House

The horrible witch pushed Hansel and Gretel into the refrigerator and the light went out when the door was shut. They had a terrible time trying to stay cool.

The witch was busy heating up the cooking range to roast Hansel and Gretel when the woodsman turned up and pushed the witch into the oven. He then went on his way.

Oven doors can be pushed open from the inside, so that is what the witch did and she stepped out back into the kitchen. Fridge doors are not like oven doors; they need the outside handle pulled to open the door. Hansel and Gretel pushed their shoulders to the door – WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! – and the refrigerator fell over on top of the witch and killed her.

Now the door of the fridge was face down on top of the witch’s corpse and there was no hope of escape. That was when the woodsman returned because he’d forgotten his axe. He saw the fridge on top of the dead witch and said “Good riddance to bad rubbish”. He pushed the fridge upright and in doing so accidentally opened the door.

Hansel and Gretel stepped out and the woodsman said “What the heck are you doing in there?” Everyone was very happy because the woodsman was Hansel and Gretel’s father.

He said to his kids, “Just leave your dead stepmother on the floor. Let’s go outside and eat some candy off a drain pipe.”

1574. Steffie’s fabulous oven

(Notes: A North Carolina dumpster is what we in New Zealand call a skip. I don’t know what the things are called anywhere else. The long-named oven is taken from a junk email I received. China was trying to sell me one!)

Butch Carson loved his meat. Every night he’d expect a roast dinner. None of this namby-pamby vegetarian nonsense that the wives of others foistered on their husbands. Steffie had learnt early in the marriage that roast beef was almost a minimum requirement. Not even chicken fitted the bill.

“Chicken is for sissies, just like vegies are for dorks.”

Honestly! If Steffie didn’t have a plasmon-induced-photoelectrochemical-biosensor-for-in-situ-real-time-measurement-of-biotin-streptavidin-binding-kinetics-under-visible-light-irradiation oven, then there was no way she could hold down a full-time job and raise six kids at the same time. The plasmon-induced-photoelectrochemical-biosensor-for-in-situ-real-time-measurement-of-biotin-streptavidin-binding-kinetics-under-visible-light-irradiation oven was a godsend. She had saved up for it over two years, secretly putting aside every week a few dollars from her meagre wages until she was able to go into a shop and say:

“Could I have one plasmon-induced-photoelectrochemical-biosensor-for-in-situ-real-time-measurement-of-biotin-streptavidin-binding-kinetics-under-visible-light-irradiation oven please.”

Butch wasn’t too happy about it. He reckoned the oven affected his television reception during the day when she had set the oven to slow cook the roast while she was at work. When the plumber came to fix the shower Butch got the plumber to throw the oven into the dumpster.

The next day, Steffie took the six kids and buggered off.

1543. Southern winter solstice

Jakob was cold. It had been a frigid winter. Jakob didn’t have much money and was out of firewood. The fireplace lay dead. The freezing outside wind seeped through the cracks in his window frames. He had covered the cracks with tape, but the wind still found a way. He was wrapped in clothes and blankets. He simply could not get warm.

Jakob had stayed up all night. Not even the bed had warmed. Jakob turned on his oven to high and opened the oven door. At least the oven heat should warm things a little. And it did. At least it did until the electric bill arrived and he couldn’t pay it. Then the electric company turned the power off.

It had been a freezing night. Utterly freezing. Jakob knew he would die. He sat in a chair and waited.

The new day dawned sunny and warm.