[jyl]

In Los Angeles. Went to a friend’s house to make dinner for him and his brother/sis-in-law and a couple other friends. My friend is paraplegic, has been bedridden for the better part of two years with various issues, not least that his caretakers feed him packaged food so he’s desperately unhealthy, but he’s just starting to get into his scooter a little, has been isolated so this dinner was kind of important.

I deboned and prepped two chickens to roast in his new Haier oven, my wife made the rest of the dinner. I get the baguette and chickens into the oven, set to 350F, after a bit decide to up temp to 375F and take out the baguette.

Wait. Why is the oven locked? What’s this symbol “P” mean? Why doesn’t the damn touchscreen respond?

Get the manual, look through it, on page 30 it says “P” means “self-clean cycle”. Of course it does, everyone knows “P” means “self-clean”. The door is locked, the oven is headed toward 500F, and the touchscreen controls remain non-responsive. ****. The baguette is starting to blacken. Frantically read the manual. There is no way to turn off self-clean or unlock the door. People are about to arrive. The baguette is smoking.

Find the panel, switch the oven circuit off then on. Do this a couple times. The “P” disappears but the door is still locked. Wait twenty minutes. People are here. The door finally unlocks. Having no idea how much roasting the chicken has done by now, I throw out the blackened baguette and slap the chicken into a pan, brown it, find some corn starch, make a quick gravy to cover up whatever the chicken tastes like.

It turned out pretty dang good actually.

I hate modern appliances. I hate the people who design the UI for them. I hate the people who write the manuals for them. They are all sadistic retards.