Oven cleaning

I hate the flat, plastic piece that is used to secure the wrapping on bread. You know the one, it's the size of a quarter, is flat and colored, and has a small slit on one end to secure the wrapping. It's stupid. The first time I remove the thing, I throw it away and replace it with a wire, twisty-tie. The kind that makes way more sense.

Recently, I removed the stupid piece from a bag of potatoes, and instead of tossing it in the trash, I apparently, left it sitting on my countertop. I baked the potatoes at 425 degrees and then went about preparing my chicken dish to accompany the potatoes. When I slid the baking dish into the piping hot oven to join the potatoes, that stupid plastic piece must've been stuck to the bottom of the dish. Because it fell into the bottom of my stove.

Where it promptly began melting.

I screamed for Madison, who came running. She stared at the piece and then stared at me holding a pair of tongs that were in no way, shape, or form long enough to rescue the piece, and she shrugged her shoulders.

Madison: "Nothing you can do."

The bottom rack in the oven is attached to the door. The other side is attached in the back to a contraption I would not remove in 425 degrees. Madison went back to what she was doing, and I ranted and raved and waited for what I knew was coming.

The smell of burnt plastic.

It took a while. When it came, it came with a vengeance. Madison began gagging in the other room. I took out the cooked potatoes and turned off the oven. I put the chicken dish into my convection oven, and then Madison and I ran around opening windows and shutting off the smoke alarm now blaring warnings of fire.

The dog watched the commotion with a dazed look before he got the hell out of the kitchen.

Which lasted for HOURS. I had to sit most of the night with my shirt covering my nose.

I Googled how to clean an oven without using the oven cleaning feature, and when the oven cooled, I did what the website suggested. I dumped an entire box of baking soda over the bottom of my oven.

The next morning I began the chore of cleaning the oven.

First, I removed all of the racks and dumped them into my bathtub. I filled the tub with hot water, added dish soap, baking soda, and vinegar. Then I walked away.

Secondly, I sprayed vinegar over the baking soda in the bottom of the oven to form a past. Then I scrubbed. Not an easy job because I had to kneel on one side and lean into the oven. This left me with no stability other than leaning against the oven door, which was not an option, not to mention gross. It took me forever to clean.

The melted plastic came up nicely with a putty knife. Three other spots? Forget it. Nothing I did removed those spots. I called it a win, despite those, and went in to finish cleaning the racks. 

All I had to do with them was wipe them clean. Apparently, my concoction had worked.

The entire job took three hours. Three days later, I put in a pan of ravioli lasagna. It bubbled over and on to the bottom of my clean oven.

I give up.