anthropomorphic rust

So I bought some cooling racks from Williams Sonoma. I bought fancy awesome cooling racks because I figured that they would last for a long time and not bow if I put heavy stuff on them. I bought two. One of them is as beautiful as the day I bought it. The other has started rusting wherever there is a cross in the metal.

I figured, hey, these are fancy. So I should be able to walk into the store with my sad rusty rack and swap it out for a new one, even though I have long since lost the receipt. Good plan! So I go to the store today with my mangled rack. A woman I encounter on the sales floor is full of pity and says of course they will exchange. I search the baking section: no extra racks. On my way to the back I find a tablecloth I have coveted for months for 75% off.

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Tangent: One of the best ways to get decorator fabric (either interesting patterns or heavier weights than normal quilter's cottons) is to buy something not in a fabric store. All of my neutral soft cottons? Old sheets from the Goodwill. They really don't make sheets like they used too. If you find someone's grandmother's white bedsheets, chances are they will be of a thread-count and softness that you just can't buy any other way. Looking for something a little heavier for bottom-weights or jackets? Even though your fabric started out as a tablecloth, there's nothing stopping you from cutting it up and making something else out of it. And at 75% off, that works out to less than $5 a yard (in this particular case) and you can't beat that.

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Anyway. So I went to check out with my tablecloth and waved my cooling rack around, hoping that they would have extras in the store-room. The woman at the register took my breath away. In a matter of numbing seconds, she declared that the rack was incapable of rust and that I could just wash it off. She grabbed a sponge from a nearby sink and proceeded to (yes!) rub some of the rust off. Yes, retail woman, rust comes off. This doesn't mean that I want my baked goods to reek of oxidation. And then came my favorite sentence:

"You see, this metal just thinks it can rust! It isn't actually rusting, because it can't! It just believes that it can!"

I chose the best option: smile and thank her for her miraculous insight, pay for the tablecloth, and get the hell out of there. I will go back another day and hopefully exchange my rusty sad rack for a new one. One that is a bit more firm in it's non-rusting beliefs.

Today's bread: pumpernickel. There are an awful lot of ingredients, but it's the best recipe I've ever used.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 1
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 2
Eggs laid this year: 19