Here’s what I think happened.

There are up and down arrow symbols on the touchscreen, to cycle through the cooking modes - broil, roast, convection roast, bake, etc. As you cycle through, the square symbol that represents the oven displays additional symbols that show what mode you’re in. A line inside the upper part of the box means broil, a fan in the box means convection, two lines means something else, etc. There are NO WORDS showing the cooking modes, it is all abstract symbology.

One of those symbols is a “P” that appears outside the box. That means “self-cleaning”. But there’s no way to know P = self-cleaning, unless you read page 31 of the manual. The earlier pages that show the cooking mode symbols don’t mention “P”, the diagram of the controls and display doesn’t mention “P”, the troubleshooting takes at the back of the manual don’t mention “P”, the only place where you’ll learn that “P” means self-cleaning is on page 31, which you’ll only read if you’re planning to clean your oven.

Suppose you are cycling through the cooking modes, and are puzzled about what a symbol means, or get distracted trying to set the temperature, or your attention is pulled away by something else going on in the kitchen. And suppose the mode display happens to be displaying “P” when you get distracted. And suppose your distraction lasts for six seconds.

Well you’re now TOTALLY effed, because self-cleaning starts automatically if the “P” symbol has been displayed for FIVE seconds. At six seconds, the oven door locks, temperature starts climbing to 500F, which it’ll hold for two hours. There is no step where you confirm you want self-cleaning to start, assuming you even know “P” means self-cleaning. And no way to stop or cancel self-cleaning or open the door to retrieve whatever is inside.

Short of finding the electrical panel and switching off the circuit the oven is on, then waiting for the oven to decide it’s cool enough to unlock the door, your ignorance of the “P” symbol and your six seconds of waylaid attention have totally effed your meal. Maybe worse - running self-clean with two whole chickens in the oven has got to be a bad thing, to fill your house with smoke at minimum, maybe even a grease fire?

S____ is in her early 80s now, and starting to declutter after a lifetime of collecting cooking stuff, curios, artwork, clothing. Everytime we see her, she gives us stuff. I made the drive from L.A. to Portland with the trunk full of oyster plates, copper cookware, an IBM Selectric typewriter, and my favorite gift for my birthday - a slide of SWMBO and me, from 1991 or so, I’m about 28 and she’s about 30 here.

Dang that was a long time ago.

I’ll end with a useful discovery for those searching for the perfect household lighting. S____’s kitchen is kind of dimly lit, despite having ten overhead recessed ceiling lights, because over the years those lights have become filled with a mismatched collection of crappy CFL floodlight bulbs giving off sickly light and not much of it. I went to Home Depot and found the coolest LED bulbs. They have a switch that allows you to set the color temperature, from cold (5000K) to warm (2700K), are dimmable, and another setting allows the dimmer to change the light from low level super-warm (2000K, almost candlelight) to high level daylight (3500-5000K depending how far you push the dimmer). I installed ten of these in her kitchen and two wall dimmers, and she (and I) are happy.

These come from 65 w equivalent to 150 w. I’m going to see if there are some that will fit in my house lights.

Happy Birthday!!!

No wonder the Mrs. wanted you to join her!

Happy miracle on skis! (I didn't need running to mess with my knees...)

Great story. Love the picture of Lius of seasons past.

P stands for Pyrolysis. But I love my modern oven. It does it 905° F. Yeah, a couple hours at 500° would have done in the chickens, but might not have gone full viking funeral on them. On mine, you have to set two dials and push start, so mine is more accidental start-proof. Good thinking on the breakers. I think the symbols may be like universal road signs. Supposed to be meaningful across languages, but inscrutable, and it's not like you can go paging through the DMV booklet at 40kph, much less the Autobahn. If I'm right, the two lines probably mean fan-off convection using top and bottom heat.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Liu. Many happy returns of the day,

What a nice surprise to see some old friends. Happy Birthday grumpy. : )

That hapened to us one Thankgiving at my Inlaws. We did not realize it was on self-cleaning until someone tried to check on it. I'm sure we did similar but just remember the initial panic.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday! What a great trip! I'm with you on modern appliances. I want the most mechanical, least computerized version I can find. Sadly, it's almost impossible to find new appliances without computers of some sort on board. Good job thinking to shut off the circuit to cancel the cycle. Thankfully, that worked.

Yeah, I'd definitely be thinking,"Oh, that must mean 'Pyrolysis'," if I saw "P" as an option on my new stove <rolls eyes>

I would ;)

Funny story! P obviously means "you're pucked, if you don't want to clean your oven."

The bear wasn’t trying to eat him, it mauled him on his inner thigh, just missing his groin :-0 and fortunately also missing the artery. He had to wrap up the wound and hike out 12 miles until he found a ranger who, after freaking out at the bite, got him to a hospital.

Yes, I love that photo. It was taken a couple years before we were married, when “M” still stood for “May” instead of “Must”. But hey it’s the servitude I always wanted. Someday I’ll tell the story of how we met.

You have the most colorful sports injury of them all, Annie!

Lovely story. I have a P thing on my oven too. The thought of the oven reaching that temperature fills me with dread so I've never used it.

OOOH, I have a sports injury. That sounds so much better than "you're 67, your knees are gonna hurt", LOL.

Your friend was very, very lucky. We have black bears here that get into the garbage cans occasionally, but they mostly tend to keep their distance from humans. Some people do suffer attacks, though, and it seldom ends well. Being that far from help, I'm sure he knows that it could have ended much differently even if the bear didn't want him for dinner.

Life is capricious, be sure to ski as much as you can!

Annie

This is sort of a low grade form of AI. It doesn't learn but it executes directions. But garbage in and garbage out. I hate that all modern appliances now have digital functions. More to break and not work well, faster to break and more expensive replacement. There's a guy in my county who is one of the country's top experts on old stove restoration, including coal, gas and wood. He would be my "go to" guy if I had the right space . . .

And then there's that whole conspiracy to ban gas stoves . . . flame too simple and easy to fix for modern "consumer driven" (read consumption) economy. At some point electric will have to take over though. I hope not in my life time . . . my little cabin in the woods with a woodstove is seeming less and less practical for elder me . . .

We're pondering getting a wood stove for our porch, a small one . . . but not really for cooking other than heating stuff on top of it . . . there are some multi-function ones with warming areas but they take up too much space . . .

The 60 year 0ld body is very much the same as skiing.

Everything will be going down hill from now on, LOL!

Happy Birthday. Don't forget when you get to be 80 years old, to consider running for President of the US.

dcarch

Happy Birthday, John! What a great surprise party — there’s nothing better than spending time with good friends.

Love the ”P” subthread and also hate digital stoves and washing machines that spontaneously decide to lock themselves. :p

Re the knees, good luck with the downhill skiing! I’ve never tried downhill but have always loved cross-country skiing. My BF and I are lauded at the golf course because we still walk to play and we both have all our original parts. :)

Happy birthday John! That was a fun story. As I was reading it, I was trying to guess if the breaker would work. Good to know my 59 year brain was heading to the correct solution. LOL

I am surprised you were able to save the chicken though. I doubt I could have moved that quickly.

I am also not the least bit surprised that our resident bad-ass farmer has a sports injury from her riding days. Yee-haw❣️

"And then there's that whole conspiracy to ban gas stoves . . . flame too simple and easy to fix for modern "consumer driven" (read consumption) economy."

I consider the gas stove bans just "virtue signalling".

Joan, I knew I had finally grown up when "yee haw" became "oh man, this is gonna hurt". (grin)

John is a much faster thinker than I am, I'd probably have left it go and called it "blackened chicken" or something.

My ovens are electric, but my cooktop is gas. Here we have no natural gas hookup available so we use propane or electric. Propane's expensive, so the ovens are electric and the heat/cooling is geothermal with propane backup. I don't like electric cooktops, though, so I'll be very unhappy if the gas stove ban ever actually happens. Of course I have my old 1940s Detroit Jewel back in the back laundry room, even if the Bosch cooktop stopped functioning and we couldn't get parts for repair, the old Jewel would keep plugging along. And who are they going to send to lift that? LOL

Annie

Yes, I just shake my head at what kinds of things folks spend time fussing over these days. Who has this kind of time??

Here’s my friend P_____ back in the day, about when the picture above of SWMBO and I was taken, when he was a racer.

I don’t get over here to Cooking often enough. Just had a fun time catching up on the birthday adventures of JL. Belated birthday wishes. My mom has a pillow that says I Am Wealthy in My Friends. I should send it to you.