Death of an Electric Skillet or Goodbye Old Life

Many moons ago, when I used to visit Teri in the early days of our relationship, she usually cooked in a square electric skillet--eggs, pancakes, burgers--whatever it was we were eating while at her place, there was a good chance it got cooked in that skillet.  I liked that skillet and I confess I associated it with those early getting-to-know-you days.

Sunday night we made a joint decision--the skillet was dead.  It had to go.  The time had come.  As I held up the scratched Teflon pan with the wiggly handles and cracked lid, I gave Teri one last chance: "It's going.  Speak now or forever hold your peace."  This final decision came after months of both of us complaining that the skillet had lost its nonstick and that it didn't heat evenly (the dial didn't seem to be correlated in any way to the actual cooking temperature.)  I had even stopped using it altogether, favoring my trusty iron skillet instead.  It might have seemed like a drastic move, but we both knew it was a long time coming.

Teri's final comment was "Goodbye old life..."

Isn't that the way of things?  Not just for Teri and I and the electric skillet but I often think life can be measured in the smallest of ways--Christmas cards, the life span of an automobile and the number of meals cooked in a particular skillet.  I could go on about how things aren't made to last any more or the poor quality of that skillet, but it would eventually have outlived its usefulness anyway.  Time passes, we have to let go and move on.  Whether because, as in the case of the pan, we'll probably burn the house down if we continue to use it, or simply because things change--life calls upon us to embrace the present
and future.

As I walked out the door carrying the scraggly pan parts, I told Teri that this created room for a new, functional electric skillet.  "It's just like a break-up," I told her, "thank goodness the universe created space in your life for me!"