Erma Bombeck Would Be Proud

Pat Dunlap Evans
16 hours ago
4 min read

Updated: 8 hours ago

Erma Bombeck, author and humor columnist

I’m old. That means I recall days when reading the morning newspaper was a ritual. That was how people were informed in the 1950s and 1960s, not misinformed, as too many are today by agenda-skewed social media or cable news.

As a teen, my favorite newspaper sections were the cartoons and humor columns. That's a clue why I never became an investigative journalist. I did take a swing at writing a humor column for a small newspaper, but making enough money to feed my kids was more important.

One column I especially enjoyed was by Erma Bombeck, a reporter who came from modest origins but wound up a syndicated columnist and author with 15 books to her credit. Books with titles like, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? And The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank.

These contain some funny, funny quips, but it was Bombeck's syndicated column, “At Wits End,” that humorously and slyly exposed the lie of the post-World War II era that 1950s-60s homemakers were oh-so happy to stay home all day doing housework. To the contrary, Bombeck hilariously described the daily angst that homemakers faced and questioned why in hell women were doing this?

I only clean out under the fridge when I move.

My mother worked as a middle school teacher and counselor, so housekeeping was often set aside to manage her two teen daughters’ busy schedules. Admittedly, we girls were so self-involved, we weren't any help. I especially remember a quote from one of Bombeck’s columns that gave my mom, sister, and me a good laugh. I'm paraphrasing, but Bombeck wrote that she only cleaned out under her refrigerator when she moved.

I loved that phrase because it was so true. The floor under our refrigerator was always the last thing that got cleaned, and, yes, only when we moved. Heck, the darn fridge had metal screw-like levelers for “legs,” and didn’t slide or roll without slashing the linoleum (that's what floors were in those days). Also in those days, your fridge moved with you. Now, they stay in place but they also slide out, and those are really good things. How many years did it take for appliance manufacturers to understand that refrigerators needed to slide?

Should I hire someone?

I bring up Erma Bombeck because I recently found myself facing a terrible task. We've lived in our home for two years, and although we installed a new, self-cleaning wall oven when we moved in, the racks cannot stay in the oven during the volcanic cleaning process. Those racks were quite overdue for cleaning, with brown stains, drizzle, and pizza crust chunks igniting in flames and smoke whenever I turned on the oven.

After removing the racks for the self-clean process, they sat on my countertop for about a week, daring me. Finally, with guests coming over, I had to do something. So I put the darn racks in the sink, sprayed them with a deep cleaner, then started scrubbing.

And scrubbing. And scrubbing.

Five minutes of this was more than I could stand. Geesh. Who does this? Should I hire someone? Or simply buy all new racks? It would have taken me days.

Luckily, I eyeballed the racks’ size. Also, luckily, I have a small oven. It's an oven/microwave wall combo, so the interior and racks are not as large as a normal unit. Although this size oven is hell to deal with at Thanksgiving, this turned out to be a benefit when, after my eyes assessed the racks' size against the racks in my dishwasher, I thought to myself, “By golly, I bet these things would fit.”

After taking out the silverware holder, I put one rack in the bottom, popped in a soap pod, started a normal cycle, and hoped. To my surprise, the first rack turned out almost perfectly clean. The racks were silver stainless steel again and shiny. Only a few tiny spots remained, and they flaked off with a swish from a Dobie pad.

I was astounded. For the next cycle, I loaded the remaining two racks, pleading with the dishwasher to handle two at once. I added a step halfway to turn each rack over during the wash cycle, and each came out almost spotless.

Immediately, I thought of Erma Bombeck and how proud she would be. She was both a humorist and an emerging feminist, pointing out the inequities of modern women straining to achieve perfection by scrubbing, vacuuming, laundry, bill paying, yard tending, facility management, and cooking while also striving to be beautifully dressed, stylishly coiffed, great listeners, involved parents, and sexy to their husbands. She loved to make fun of how silly women were to think we could do all that. Or even try.

I also wanted to share my oven rack solution with those who have smallish wall ovens. Don't stand there scrubbing if you can fit the racks inside your dishwasher.