It’s good to know I’m not alone…

I was in one of my favourite local shops yesterday and the proprietor, a dear friend, said, ‘You know what you were writing about the other day? I’m right there with you. I have had to eat humble pie more than once when I was convinced I was right and found out I was wrong.”

She was talking about an essay I recently published discussing how to decide what’s important enough to argue over. You can read it here.

I thanked her for her kind words and said, “One of the things I love most when people comment on an essay is that it reminds me I’m not alone. It’s good to know I’m not the only one stumbling my way through life.”

In fact, I got another reminder today that I’m not alone, that the world is full of people trying their best to figure things out and searching for answers to some of life’s questions. And where are they searching?

Google.

Just Google it!

Seriously – Google is the go-to search engine for EVERYTHING!

I was at a party the other night and someone asked if I knew *insert name of person in question*. I said the name didn’t ring a bell. Someone else chimed in wondering where that saying came from and our conversation took a left-hand turn while we debated the possible origins.

We’d pondered a few possibilities before the youngest of our crowd said, “I’ll get my phone and Google it.” We got an answer of sorts, but it ended the conversation.

I like to discuss things like that, see what other people come up with for an answer. Sometimes though, I’m the first one running to see if Google can solve my problem – like this morning.

Should have thought that one through…

It’s no secret I get a bit twitchy when my house starts to get cluttered, especially the kitchen. My Sweet and I were trying to get supper made last night and because we’d had a few really busy days, the kitchen was untidy. I needed more counter space so I grabbed an aluminum oven liner that was sitting on the counter and tossed it onto the bottom of the oven where it was out of the way. I figured it couldn’t come to any harm there. It was an oven liner after all.

So that assumption was wrong.

Last winter I got a brand-spanking new self-cleaning oven. I’ve never had one and let me tell you, what a treat! Solid glass cooktop so no more boiled over mess pouring down through the coil burners. Hidden elements in the oven so there’s just that little bit of extra space inside. I loved it! Still do.

But those aluminum oven liners are NOT meant for self-cleaning or hidden element ovens. While our supper baked, so did the aluminum. Into a molten puddle on the bottom of my brand new stove!

The melted oven liner :(Of course, when it cooled it stuck like sh*t to a blanket on the bottom of the oven, which I didn’t notice until this morning when I tried to remove the oven liner.

Probably not going to be able to hide this…

I’d like to be able to get it cleaned up without enlisting the help of My Sweet. It was my fault. I’m the one who lost her cool and fired that tray into the oven to get it out of the way. Hence my consultation with Google and my relief that I was not even close to the first one to Google how to clean melted aluminum off the bottom of an oven. Google has this awesome prediction capability that gives you similar searches by other people.

So here I am. Waiting for a heavy application of oven cleaner (ironic that I bought a self-cleaning oven to avoid ever having to use oven cleaner again) to hopefully melt the aluminum that’s still stuck to the bottom of the oven. And, of course, letting you all know, once again, that I am fallible.

Just like everyone else.

I am not alone.

Well I am right now, quite literally alone. Hoping to erase the evidence of my fallibility…also my impatience, my frustration, and my (fine, I can say it…) temper before My Sweet comes home. Oh, I’ll confess it eventually. Probably as soon as he walks in the door because as long as the melted foil comes off the oven, I can see the humour in the situation.

But I’m about done with the lessons in humility lately.

Seriously.

So done.

By the way – the ‘doesn’t ring a bell’ saying…you can learn about where it came from here.