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Let’s say you’re cooking dinner.
And you drop something behind the stove.

Like a bit of meat, for example.

Or a piece of broccoli.

But it’s just out of reach.

(Of course.)

What would you do?

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18 comments

    • Samantha

    Cut your losses and hope that it evaporates when you’re moving things around. :-)

    • Jessica

    I use a straightened metal coat hanger to fetch lost cat toys from under my stove. The hook on the end is handy, especially paired with a flashlight.

    If this isn’t feasible, could you have a friend tip the stove backward or sideways while you reach underneath?

    • Treasa

    Personally I swear in four different languages, and then, if it is possible, move the stove out of the way because I don’t want recriminations later if a mouse moves in, or something nasty starts to smell.

    On the plus side, that’s energy you use up so can replace with a psychologically boosting bit of expensive chocolate or, possibly, an expensive beverage of your own choice.

    • Jessica

    I’m torn between pretending it didn’t happen and asking my husband to clean it up. ;-)

    • moonablaze

    I’m with kevin. vegitable matter will eventualy dry up and become part of the dust back there, but animal products need to be cleaned up for fear of maggots.

    • beber

    Quelle question a la con!

    • David

    Aww…I’m so glad to have my stove located in my center kitchen island. If it falls behind…I just go around to the other side and pick it up.

    • Connie

    Hockey Stick !

    • Chelsea

    Move! I feel for the people who buy our place, they’re going to be finding marbles for years to come. (One of our cats thinks marble hockey is a real sport – watch for it in 2010).

    • Christine

    You would gag over the things that have fallen behind and down the sides of my stove. If it’s runny, I pull the stove out and clean it up. If it’s vegetable, the veggie fairies can deal with it. If it’s meat, I figure the cats will find it. Sometime.

    • Lucy Vanel

    Considering that my kitchen might just as well be the size of David’s island, I’d probably just let it go until my next manic cleaning spree.

    • Judith in Umbria

    Depends on the stove. Mine has legs. Last one, if I pulled out the drawer I could get at things. Otherwise, send in a pet snake– doesn’t have to be yours.

    • Marie, Paris

    For the brocoli, it’ll dry, let it RIP.
    But the meat is a problem, it may smell… I’d use something long and thin (like the coat hanger thinggy) and retrieve it.

    • eg

    Say bad words. Ignore the piece of fennel until ants come marching in to escape from the flooding rain. The fennel has started to ferment from the summer heat and humidity and the ants are intrigued. Say some more bad words. Pull the stove out, squeeze behind it and vacuum and mop the floor. Make plans to move before this needs to be done again.

    • Jeanne

    Swear. A lot. Gauge likelihood of food item either a) drying out and shrivelling up or b) decomposing and smelling. If at all possible, pretend it never happened. If this is not possible, call hubby, hand him a damp cloth and a dustpan & brush and remind him to clean up some cobwebs while the stove is out of the way ;-)

    You have no idea how often stuff falls down into the 1cm gap between my fridge and my stove. I swear gravity is at it’s strongest just there…

    • Alisa

    Clean IT!!! But that’s just me.

    Hi, glad you are back.

    • Lili

    I’ve been reading for awhile (at least a year…) but this is my first comment!

    What do I do?

    It never happened… Till hubby pulls the stove out, in one of his OCD cleaning fits, and I look with wide-eyed innocence at the dried food-bit and cat toy graveyard, and say something like “Whooooaaa, how did all THAT get there!?”

    • anne

    Just make sure it’s not a cat you got trapped behind your stove/gas range like in that Cédric Klaplisch movie ‘Aucun Cherche Son Chat.’

A

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