Getting sentimental over the "wrong" things

Two of my dearest friends are committed sentimentalists. I tease these sterling women about tearing up over a motor-oil commercial, and they tease me about having a heart of stone. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It's true I don't usually get misty-eyed over puppies and kittens and toddler girls in princess dresses, but even the Basking Snark has her moments. Today I was surprised to find myself torn up over saying goodbye to some old, past-their-prime kitchen accoutrements.

A series of unforeseen events has led me into a much-needed kitchen renovation, and demolition started today. As my trusty old gas cooktop was hauled out the door, I felt something prickling at the back of my eyes, and that hot, choking feeling in my throat.

The original cooktop in this house was one of those old, unreliable, electric coil burner things. FOUR burners, I'd like to add, not the five that most devoted cooks consider the absolute minimum for getting through a big meal. One Thanksgiving, as I was entertaining guests from New Zealand who'd never had an American Thanksgiving, three burners died a sputtering, sparking death. Only the fact that my mother lived next door prevented us from having to rely on another tried-and-true American tradition: peanut butter and jelly. First thing the next morning, my mother, my young son and I Black Fridayed ourselves right out of here, eager to finally buy my long-coveted five-burner gas cooktop.

I loved that thing. It wasn't the fanciest model on earth, but it worked like a dream and gave us years of chili, tea, jam, stir-fries, real fries, pancakes, bacon, Christmas fudge and toffee, and, in the waning years of my mother's life, endless heatings-up of Campbell's Cream o' Crap soup. (I tried, food friends, I tried when she was strong and healthy, and I failed. During her final months on earth, my little Wolfie Momma had as much Cream o' Crap as she could get down with her fragile little kitten-like sips. I did not sneer, neither did I argue. The time to elevate her tastes to real food had passed.)

It was a little hard to clean. Once in a while the simmer burners resented their supporting role and went full BTU, turning fragile Hollandaise into an industrial-strength adhesive. The electronic ignition had a mood disorder and would throw sparks now and then. Once I inadvertently sprayed some sort of cleaning goo into an igniter, started a real fire, and ended up with a houseful of delectably handsome firefighters. (Most of my domestic catastrophes have a silver lining and that one was sterling.) But we always managed to work out our differences and get on with things.

When I left the house today to get out of the noise and dust, I spotted my old plastic paper-towel dispenser in the pile that was to be taken away for disposal. That  thing never was quite right, but it was hard to see it in the junk pile. Mounting that dispenser crookedly in a too-tight spot under the wrong cabinet was one of the first big-boy, man-around-the-house things my sweet son ever did for me. Oh, don't get me wrong--I won't miss it--it never worked right and was the cause of way too much profanity. But I still had to blink back a tear when I saw it on the rubble pile.

Is it silly to get sentimental over outdated kitchen items that are going to be replaced by much nicer kitchen items? Probably so, if what's really going on is attachment to items.

But if those items really mean a lifetime of meals and parties and people and vast pots of Halloween chili and and Daddy's red sauce and silky Thanksgiving gravy and countless summers of jam with my best friend and a little boy with a huge heart trying to take care of his momma, and, yes, my mother's last few bowls of Cream o'Crap, then no. The tears, the clutch at the heart, the choked-up throat simply mean that I'm attached to my people and the endless joys and few little heartaches that kitchen has hosted. Oh, and at least one episode of some reallllllyyy wonderful firefighter watching.

Peace and joy, my friends.