The Antics of the Yellow Kitchen

The yellow kitchen is neatly tucked in the back of my classroom.  It's one of my favorites because of it's color.  It also gets to claim the home of the spice cabinet, the garbage disposal, and the newest stove.  Because of this, I'm not sure why it feels the need to act up.  Maybe it's because it has the least amount of counter space, or up until February because it had the oldest stove.  Regardless, the yellow kitchen has developed quite a name for itself. 

It started back around October.  The seniors had been cooking taco meat for their lunch fundraiser and we were pouring cooled grease down the disposal.  A couple days after this, an unpleasant odor starts coming from the yellow kitchen.  My first thought was a dead mouse.  Unfortunately the problem wasn't that simple.  The garbage disposal had a crack all the way down the side and had spewed hamburger grease all over the cabinet under the sink.  It was very disgusting.  And thankfully our wonderful day maintenance man cleaned it up for me while I taught class.  (I cannot sing his praises enough!)  So the yellow kitchen receives a new garbage disposal. 

Everything seemed to be going well, until the beginning of this semester.  We were getting ready to do some serious cooking in Orientation and needed all 5 kitchens, so our maintenance man goes about turning on the gas and checking for leaks.  He's checking the stove in the yellow kitchen and all goes well until he gets ready to light the last burner.  Suddenly there's an explosion of fire at the back of the room.  I'm not exaggerating here.  I was standing at the front of my room discussing lab options with "my boys" and felt the heat from it.  As it turns out, the pipe that feeds the burner in question has been broken and leaks gas out all the time.  So my amazing administrator magically comes up with the funds for a new stove for yellow kitchen. 

At this point, I'm thrilled.  I have a new garbage disposal and a new stove.  We are good to go!  Well apparently the yellow kitchen is not happy yet.  I haven't figured out why it feels unloved, but apparently it does.  During one of our last labs in Orientation, the stove starts smoking.  (This is mainly because of human error, but still)  To make a long story short, moral of the story - it is possible to use to much cooking spray.  But on top of that, we can't leave the gas on all the time yet, because there is still a strong odor of natural gas coming from the yellow kitchen.  I don't know what it will take to end these antics, but I've had enough of it!