Big Rat in our Oven

My daughter attends cooking lessons every Saturday for a few hours and it’s only going to be for a few Saturdays.
She came home with samples of sushi and Japanese fried rice which she herself prepared in class. She ate this at home so siguro masarap kasi naubos nya.

She asked me if our oven works because she wants to bake lasagna. I said yes. Although our oven is as old as our house, 10 years old, it’s rarely used. Maybe no more than 5 times. Yung loob parang bago pa. Or so we thought.

The unthinkable happened. All this time pala, there’s a big rat living inside our oven!! While we cook on the stove, underneath, there lies a big rat. Nakakakilabot. We don’t bake or reheat food in the oven that’s why the rat was able to survive there.

The maids removed one pillow-full of cottons which we thought came from the laundry area. It turned out that those were the oven’s lining and insulation.

Edmund removed all the trays, walls and linings of the oven. He practically dismantled the oven to look for the rat. Wala, ang galing magtago.

At night, the rat goes out to look for food. We could not scatter rat poison around the kitchen and anywhere in our house, garage and garden because Tyler, Stitch, Jack, Twinkle and Lucy lick floors. Baka sila malason. Edmund put rat poison inside the oven and in two days, the big rate came out, wriggling and with wobbly legs. Then, tapos ang buhay nya, Patay.

We are throwing away the oven and this weekend, my husband and I are going to shop for a new stove. Mahal pa naman yan. That was Alba made in Italy.
Naalala ko tuloy when I was buying that oven, the young sales agent asked me how old I was and if I was single or married. I replied, “kasing edad ko ang nanay mo”. He saw where I lived in the invoice and in the delivery order. He asked me
“Mam, di ba mayaman ang mga nakatira dyan?”
A—-“Siguro yung iba, baka yung kalapitbahay namin”.
Sales agent—- “Gusto kong magka meron ng girlfriend na mayaman”.
I have to give him credit for being honest.

My daughter’s lasagna has to wait till we have a brand new, super clean and fully sanitized oven. PLUS, we also have to sanitize our whole dirty kitchen to make sure no more rat is left inside. Nakakakilabot talaga.