It was the best apple pie I’d ever baked. I actually had enough crust to completely cover the top, instead of having to cheap out with latticework. And I’d even managed to roll the bottom crust gracefully into the pan without shredding it. Just the right amount of cinnamon and rum in the filling; flaky softness in the crust.

And it may be the last for a while.  When I removed the pie and pushed the “stop” button on my range’s electronic controls, there was a startling pop. The pop was accompanied by an arcing flash beneath the smooth glass top, at the edge of a saucepan sitting on a burner. When I got a whiff of burned wires, I ran to the garage and hit the breaker.

That was it for the stove, at a mere five years old, whose baffling problems had gone on all summer. It started with a pie – specifically, when I noticed that one didn’t get as evenly brown as usual. The rest of the stove still worked. Diagnosis: Broken convection relay. Relay replaced, problem remained. New diagnosis: Bad part. Then another new relay, same old problem. Third diagnosis: Bad electronic control panel. Panel replaced but…can you stand the suspense?…the problem remained. Third diagnosis: Guess what? Bad part.

A second panel still didn’t fix the convection problem, and it started beaming out cryptic error code messages and beeping at random. I felt like a demonically possessed R2D2 was living in my kitchen The hub’s opinion: “The stove is jinxed.”

The stove has had all the chances it’s getting from us. So, it’s the grill, slow-cooker and microwave for about 10 days until the new one arrives. The old one sits shut down and dark, a little menacing, like a disconnected Hal. At least it didn’t get my pie.