As a reminder, I am looking for Amazon reviews.  Please contribute . . . nicely.  And now for a story that I forgot to put in the book. 

I have owned and operated a Rival Crock Pot for over 40 years.  Those of you who are old enough to remember the 60s have one.  Oh, yes you do.  I use it to braise beef or pork to shred for tacos.  Yum.  It works perfectly, but the material it’s made from is very porous and a pain in the butt to clean.  Consequently, I tend to put off that task until my brain shames me sufficiently.  Once clean, I store it in the cupboard above the refrigerator.

Three things you need to know: one, ceramic is the second hardest material behind diamonds; two, I store the cord of my crock pot up the side and coiled inside the pot making the glass lid not fit in place when the pot is stored; and three, my kitchen floor is made from ceramic tile.  Wait, I’m not there yet.

On a beautiful and calm Sunday morning, I was cleaning the crock pot while Magnus was relaxing on the tile floor near the edge of the kitchen, and Nika was equally relaxed on the living room carpet just next to him.  I raised the now clean crock pot up and over my head, reaching for the cupboard, when the glass lid slipped from its perch and plummeted to earth.  The impact could be felt on multiple continents.  Glass shattered across the kitchen and well into every adjacent room.  I froze.

Now, you might expect that the dogs would explode to their feet and flee ground zero with every ounce of energy they could muster, but no, they froze as well.  All three of us, locked in place like it was the end of recess.  When I regained my composure, I screamed, “Stay!”.  I made my way over to Magnus and slowly picked glass off his coat.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t even show his tongue.  When I finished, I stepped over him to get to Nika.  She hadn’t moved either.  I picked glass off her coat while Magnus watched, still lying in the same place.  Still no tongues, just shocked stares.  When I finished with her, I opened the living room door to the side yard.  They rose slowly and followed me outside where I led them both through the gate into the back yard.

After cleaning glass from the massive fallout zone, I went to the Internet to find a replacement lid so I could keep my treasured crock pot.  I found the piece of glass with the stamp indicating lid size or part number or whatever and looked that up on eBay.  There were tons of glass lids listed, but none of them were correct.  However, there was another crock pot just like mine for sale, pot and lid.  I bought them both for a whopping five bucks.  Truth be told, I kept the lid and tossed the pot.  I’m a diligent cleaner, but I continued to find well-hidden glass shards for over a year.  You can rest assured, that ever since that moment, I put the crock pot back into its storage spot with great care.

Remember to buy, read, and review the book!  Thanks.