You read before you a happy bunny. My slow cooker is mended HURRAH!
It had been horribly and mortally wounded by my eldest who, when asked to turn it on Low had turned on the hob, on which it was sitting. I have a small kitchen, and the only available space at that moment was the hob, an electric hob that heats up by number, not word.
Why my son thought that "Put the slow cooker on Low" meant "turn on the hot plate to a lowish number below 4" I'm not sure. It could be because at the time he had multiple mates in the house all strung out on the sofa in front of the tele making much noise, eating me out of house and home and playing on the XBox. His mind was probably not properly on the job.
I was, at the time, feeling very poorly at my DB's having slept all afternoon after being laid low by some sort of killer bug that struck briefly but ferociously. So when I eventually made it home to enjoy a nice warm dinner, imagine my dismay when I got home to find no delicious aromas wafting out of the front door. Only a house full of adolescents and empty packets of just about everything which were being hurriedly tidied up and thrown away.
When I went to check out the slow cooker, I saw that the electric lead was half melted, as was one of the feet. Melted onto the hob, where else... My son told me what he'd done, how it had shorted the house, and how one of his mates who is studying how to be an electrician at the moment knew how to flip the switch to turn everything back on. Hopefully my son knows now too...
Well I gave him a bollocking of course, not that it brought my slow cooker back to life, but it made me feel better. He was suitably contrite. I'd only cooked two meals in the damned thing after bringing it back from the UK! (Long story, nutshell: present from mum).
I lamented the demise of my slow cooker at work, and my boss said that I should take it apart and change the lead. Brilliant idea. I set to work and managed to wreck one of the screws. I could see it being fit only for the bin. Another guy at work told me to bring it in and he would take a look. He's much more of an expert than me (not difficult) having worked in the repair shop at a major electrics store. I got it back this morning with a new lead and a new foot.
You cannot imagine how I rejoiced, how happy I am, and relieved that I don't have to go out and buy slow cooker number 3 (yes, my - as in a present for my DB that ended up living in my house - first one gave up the ghost just after the end of the 2-year guarantee period - an electronics problem, impossible to fix).
The next time I cook something in my slow cooker I'll take a portion in to my new hero and offer it to him gratefully and humbly for his lunch.
He even knocked out the dent that had come about as the result of being transported unprotected in my suitcase on Eurostar. Lovely.