“I’ve Got Shards in My Enchilada”

After a long day of work, my girlfriend calls to ask if I’m okay with enchiladas tonight. “HELL YES” I’m okay with enchiladas for dinner tonight! Leaving late from work on a Friday, I got into the car for my 40=minute trek to the Philadelphia suburbs. I could taste the cheesey goodness of enchiladas, looking forward to smelling them as I walk up the stairs to the apartment. YUM.

Ten minutes away—now I’m really getting hungry. I’ve convinced my stomach that it’s in for a tasty treat tonight. He’s excited. I got a call from girlfriend, thinking it would be her asking how far away I was so she would know when to put it in the oven. Then, WHAMMY: “the pyrex dish exploded after about a minute and a half in the oven.” DAMNIT. Luckily, girlfriend was okay and THANK GOODNESS she didn’t open up the oven to peak at the enchiladas while it exploded.

I wasn’t sure of what to expect — was thinking maybe the “oven safe” glass just split into quarters. She seemed upset on the phone — but she did just spend an hour creating these tasty envelopes of cheesy goodness. But then I got home, and the glass had literally shattered into hundreds of tiny glass pieces, covered in cheese. To make it worse, of course cheese coated at least half of the oven. Since we have a gas oven, the glass (and cheese) also snuck into the cracks that go below the panel that covers the gas burners.

At about this time, I would show you a picture of the shards of glass and what a cheesy oven looks like. But we were both pretty devestated that we’d be spending about 45 minutes trying to get TINY bolts out to take the panel off, then at least an hour and 45 minutes cleaning the rest of it. PLUS three hours of heat in the entire apartment while the oven self-cleaned. Sorry, it didn’t cross our minds to take a picture thinking “hey – this would be a great ES post!”

We’re both still pretty pissed, but I did call Pyrex. After waiting on the phone for 20 minutes, I spoke to a rep and explained the whole story. Reiterating the fact that they are lucky we just had to clean up cheese rather than a face full of glass, I retold the horror. I was not sure to expect, some companies are great — no questions asked, others will send a coupon. Pyrex: sending a replacement “under the warranty.” However, it was not a “no questions asked” situation. I was interviewed and hopefully they actually seriously look at these cases. OH, and Pyrex did make sure I know not to put a frozen dish in a scalding hot oven.

For the record:

– Dish and contents in dish were room temperature when entering the oven
– Dish was not set on oven top or cool surface
– Replacement dinner: Chinese (I did try to get them to reimburse me for dinner, but didn’t get too far)

ML claims that cooking spray prevents this from happening. Let me know.

…I hope this does not change your outlook on Mexican food.

#FAIL