The Mystery of the Oven Mitt

When I was growing up, we had a stranger living in our house. His name was Senhor Ninguém (neighn-game is how I remember saying it). That is portuguese for Mister Nobody. He was the deviant who ate all the maraschino cherries out of the bottle. He opened the container of treats and ate them slowly one by one over time, so mom would find just a few in the bottom when she thought there was a full container. He left just a smidgen of milk in the bottom of the bottle and yet put it back in the fridge. He threw our clothes on the floor. He tracked dirt through the house and pulled the fur off the dog and blew it into the corners to become dust bunnies. He was the one who hid our things under the bed or in the back of the closet so a little brother or sister would get blamed for taking things. In fact, he took things and put them in those little brother or sister’s rooms to provoke a fight. He was always getting somebody in trouble.

The bad news: he has now moved in with us.

Tony and I have two, ratty, well used, oven mitts. Dark blue, the normal mitten style with the quilted material. One has a burn mark where it had caught on fire after touching the oven coil. One is slightly torn with the stuffing peeking out. They only work medium well, but there is one catch to them. You really need two. Two mitts for two hands. Call that the safety tip of the day.

Our aberrant friend, Senhor Ninguém, decided to take one. Usually with enough searching you can find where he hides the goods. But not this time. We have searched high and low, all the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. The laundry and the laundry room, behind and beside the washer and dryer. Even in the garage, which enters into our kitchen. We are stumped.

So now that I have shared about our friend, I plan to go buy replacement mitts. Surprisingly, it’s not that easy. So far, all that I have found are either really expensive, or crappy quality. Oven mitts that are thin are bad news. But the silver lining inside the dark cloud is as soon as I get new ones, the old one will reappear. And we will have another story for solving this mystery from our best buddy Senhor Ninguém.