My Easy Bake Oven

MY EASY BAKE OVEN

“Huh.”

I looked down at the cardboard box holding the melted husk of my Easy Bake Oven,.

“Why would they keep it?” I said, aloud, even though I was alone in the attic.

I had been cleaning out the attic. My dad had recently passed, and my mom had made the heart-rending decision to sell the house and move into a senior living complex.

It really was a good idea. Mom was on her own now, and well, she was lonely. This big old house was more of a chore than an oasis for her. And Mom needed an oasis. She had taken a two month trial period on a one bedroom apartment at the senior residence. There were no restrictions. If she decided that she wanted to be social and eat in the dining room with her friends on Wednesday, she just had to let the kitchen know on Tuesday night. Plus, there were bus trips the residents could go on. Like to gamble? Well, there were three weekly trips to the local casino. Like the theatre? There were trips to local productions, and those farther afield. Like to shop? Well, the travel itinerary at the residences was truly epic. Outlet malls, regular malls, shopping meccas — all covered by the residence, for a small fee.

Much to my relief, Mom had thrived in her new home. She loved the camaraderie of there fellow residents — so many people who shared similar life experiences. There was something to be said for people who could remember when the Berlin Wall came down, or when apartheid ended. Or when Paul Newman was the sexiest man alive, before People magazine had ever published.  

Long story short, Mom was in her happy place. It melted my heart to see her engaged in her own life again. After Dad died, Mom just sort of closed in on herself. She stopped going out. She stopped having people over. Only my sister Lee and I were ever allowed into the family home. Mom seemed lost in her own world of television and house cleaning. This was during the pandemic, so social circumstances allowed her to retreat from society. But, after people started mingling again, Mom didn’t. She just stayed in isolation, alone in her big old house. 

Lee and I had to intervene. We persuaded Mom to visit the local senior centre. There she met Thelma, a woman in the same situation as Mom — husband recently deceased, lonely, rambling around a house far too large for a single person. Except, Thelma had moved into The Renaissance Centre, and loved it. She couldn’t say enough nice things about the place. And, surprisingly, Mom listened. She never would have considered moving there if it had been either Lee or I who had suggested it. But because it was Thelma, Mom embraced the idea of selling her house, and downsizing into a one bedroom at The Centre, as we called it.

All that to say why I was now staring down at the melted husk of my Easy Bake Oven. I had been tasked by my mother and sister to clean out the attic of the house. You can’t have tons of crap hiding in the attic when you’re trying to sell your home. Potential buyers frown upon having to look at all the detritus that a family accumulates over sixty years of residence.  

I had no idea why Mom and Dad would have kept this disaster of a toy. It holds no happy memories for any of us.  

It was almost fifty-five years ago. I was, what, nine? And my parents bought me an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. Not just any Easy Bake Oven, but the model that used the two one-hundred watt bulbs, instead of the later models that used just one. I remember that my oven was turquoise, and came with two baking pans, a cookie sheet, and maybe five pre-measured cake and muffin mixes. I blew through those mixes in days. Unfortunately for all concerned, my parents refused to by me replacement mixes. They said that I had to wait until my birthday in June.  

But I couldn’t wait. While my Mom and Dad were at work — I was part of the original latch-key kid generation — I experimented with other things I could cook in my Easy Bake Oven. Did you know that you could actually cook meat in an Easy Bake Oven? No? I only found out because I thought that I would enjoy my bologna sandwich heated and toasted.  Not too bad. Then moved on to eggs. Yes, my Easy Bake oven could both fry and scramble eggs, as long as I was careful not to spill the egg mixture on the light bulb. And you could make tiny cheese-melt sandwiches, and baked potatoes (I have no idea why I wanted, at nine years old, to make a baked potato — I didn’t like them when they were made in the oven, proper).  

My parents never mentioned my after school cooking experiments. I’m fairly sure they must have smelled what I was cooking. Most of my experiments were hit and miss, and I have to admit, most were misses. But they never said a word. Lee was older than me, and pretty much ignored me, so I was free to try what I wanted to try.  

Everything was okay until the day I decided to try the brownie mix I found in the pantry. “Just add water” was all the instructions said. Cool, I thought, I can do that. What I didn’t consider was the very small size of my Easy Bake Oven pans versus the volume of the brownie mix when I “just added water.” I filled the pans to the brim, and shoved the first one into the oven’s opening. It was so full that some of the mix spilled onto the bulb. It smelled a bit, and there was a bit of smoke, but, at nine years old, it was no problem. Everything was all good. Until it the first pan of brownies was done. It had risen so much that it was taller than the opening out of the oven to the cooling rack. I didn’t know what to do. Instead of unplugging my Easy Bake Oven, I just stuck another over-full cake pan in, and tried to force the first pan out of the cooking area, into the cooling area. Sure it worked, but I cut off about an inch of brownie, which fell on to the very hot light bulb, and started to smolder. Add to that the spillage from the second pan, and well, a baking disaster was in the making.

It was at that time that Lee called me into the living room. I can’t remember why, exactly, but I think it might have been to watch the Monkees on television. I loved the Monkees, in particular Davy Jones. I started watching whatever it was, and completely forgot about my brownies.

This was a time before timers on ovens, or smoke detectors, or nine-one-one, or any sort of parental over-site. Toys were toys. No one thought about how dangerous they were.

I must have sat there in the living room watching the television with Lee for over half an hour. That was when she noticed a black roil of smoke exiting the kitchen, and rolling across the living room ceiling.

“Oh my God, Fiona! The kitchen’s on fire!”

“What?” (I was young, and not too bright.)

“LOOK!” she said, pointing into the kitchen.

She was right. When I looked into the kitchen, I could see flames licking up the side of my Easy Bake Oven.

I ran into the kitchen. I admit it wasn’t to put out the fire, but to save my Easy Bake Oven. To no avail. It was at that exact time that Mom arrived home, took one look at the situation, grabbed Lee and I, pulled us out the house, and ran to the neighbours to call the fire department. Remember, no cell phones, either. 

Within minutes the fire department arrived, and quickly doused the flames. For months after, the house smelled like burnt brownies and melted plastic.

I was questioned by the fire chief, and owned up to using my Easy Bake Oven without my parents permission. The Chief looked at Mom. I was pretty sure he was about to give her a lecture on supervising her children, but she just looked at him.

“Don’t start. I have a job. In your perfect world, Moms wouldn’t work outside the home, and would be home supervising their children, so this type of thing couldn’t happen. I happen to have a career that I love. So, Fiona, my younger daughter is at home with her older sister Lee for ninety minutes between after school until I get home at five, Monday to Friday. Unfortunately, something happened today. I will be sure to review the rules of what can and cannot happen when they are home alone.”

At that, she turned on her heels and went into her soggy, smelly house.

Nothing was ever said about the fire. By most standards it was a small fire, contained to mainly my Easy Bake Oven. But Mom did get a new modern kitchen, so there was that. In fact, the remnants of that remodel still exist in 2023.  

But none of that explains why my parents kept the melted husk of my Easy Bake Oven in the attic. It couldn’t be for sentimental reasons, unless almost burning down the house held a soft spot in their hearts. I think it was kept as a reminder — a reminder about what could have happened.

Thank you, Mom and Dad? I'm not sure.