How many housewives does it take......

.....to change a lightbulb?

I am so annoyed with myself. Really, really annoyed.

I came down to my kitchen this morning, turned on the lights over my stove and noticed that one of my halogen lightbulbs was burned out. Since I am a freak about lighting (and running out of Viva paper towels, and crumbs and watermarks on the counters....we all have our issues I guess), I immediately went to the cupboard and happily found that I did have a replacement bulb. Went back to the range to study how to go about changing the bulb, since in the five years that I've had this Dacor unit I've only had to change a bulb once.

The bulbs appear to be recessed into the unit itself. "Hhhhhhm," I thought. "I must have had to unscrew all of these lugnuts last time." Genious!

So I went to the toolbox and found a small wrench. Those suckers were tough to get out, but after about five minutes, some WD40, and a little elbow grease, I had a neat little pile of them on my counter.

BAM! With no screws left to hold it in place, the entire unit came crashing down, along with about four feet of the galvanized tube that vents the whole works to the outside. Uh oh.

My husband came down and was like, "What the hell's going on down here?!?!" Meanwhile, I am about to cry, because at this exact moment I am feeling like a kid who had just broken a beloved toy.

He layed himself across the cooktop and using both his hands AND his feet (nice visual, right?)tried to guide the entire updraft system (about 60 pounds) back into place. No such luck.......nothin' doin'. Absolutely impossible.

We now have the updraft unit wedged precariously back in it's proper spot. It is, of course, in no way fixed. I have two coolers stacked on my cooktop, lest the 'wedging' give way and the entire thing plummets once again. The coolers will stay there, awaiting the service tech who is not due to arrive until tomorrow morning. No cooking in my corner of the kitchen today I guess.

Here's the kicker: if I had taken the time to pour a cup of coffee and reaaaaalllly think about how I changed that bulb last time, (or, BRILLIANT!! gotten out the DIRECTIONS?!?) I would have remembered it was done quite easily, by using a tiny little suction cup that came with the unit, to be used in times such as these.