Sweet Melissa

She comes in and rearranges my stuff when I’m gone

San Francisco kitchen (photo by author)

I am standing in front of the gas stove at the San Francisco apartment. It is probably from the 1970s, and the oven still bakes along. Three of the burners work fine, one does not work. One day on my return, I turned on the fire under a teapot intended for an electric base. Part of the aftermath was thick black gunk on the chrome drip pan, which I had to…