The oven repair man

A few weeks ago Mama and Papa were having a baking night. Papa likes to make the most of turning the oven on (saving energy he says) so they made pizza, bagels and a cake. It was only after they had prepared everything that they realised something was wrong with the oven...it wouldn't heat up over 150 degrees.

'The bottom element is fucked' Papa said. I didn't think he was an electrician, but he knows the technical terms. 

In this oven the bottom element is concealed so it's not easily accessible. Papa said he didn't think he should do the job himself as it means pulling the oven out. He said last time he tried to fix an oven he electrocuted himself.

'Well am I getting my pizza and cake tonight?' I asked.

'We will try Barney, but it's gonna take a while because we are on half power'.

And it did take a while, like hours to cook all this shit, but finally they got everything cooked, though everything was well done on the top and underdone on the bottom.

Since then we've had no baked goods. :(

'When are you gonna get this fixed, I want some fucking pizza this week' I said.

'It's not our stuff Barney, so we need to log it in with the owner'.

And log it in they did, and the owner is very quick, and she logged it with the 'Hausverwaltung' (property managers) and they logged it with a repair company. The repair company got back to us within the day and arranged a time to come the next week - between 8 and 10 am.

So the day came and we all got up at 7:30am. This killed us getting up that early. We are used to poor service and wondered if the guy would come at 9:58am, if at all. But, he came at around 8:30am. Wunderbar!

The guy was all smiles and Guten Morgen. Mama offered the guy a coffee and when he said yes, Papa had to make it. Papa was in the man's way because the coffee machine is next to the oven. The guy got on with the job.

Papa asked if he could help Mr Repairman, and he pretty much said, 'You can help by getting out of the way'.

He had to pull the oven out, tested the element and said 'Ja, es ist kaput'. 

He put a new element in, and refitted the oven, and then made sure everything worked. He told us that 'Es funktioniert gut!' We all cheered and hailed a new era of baking!

He showed us the old element - it had 'exploded' he said, due to age (about 8 years he reckoned) and then he made gestures as if turning the knobs of the oven to full and said 'und viel sehr heiß Pizzas!'. Okay, enough of the jokes repair man.

With the oven back in place, Mr repair man got Papa to sign the work slip, which included the cost...145 Euros!! Fuck! who's gonna pay for that. Papa had a heart attack, but said the landlady is probably paying for the work. Phew.

So now we have a working oven again...woo hoo! 'When are we having pizza?' I asked.

'Let's just have breakfast first and worry about pizza later' Papa said.

I guess 8:30am is a bit early for pizza, so I let them make me breakfast instead, eggs on toast.

Still no answer on when I'm getting pizza though...