A Motherlode of Crock-Pots

While packing the cupboards before moving out of my condo, I found a Crock-Pot.

This is the trusty pot that I use to cook the comfort food that sees me through the cold months, which in Minnesota means everything on either side of August, but behind that one – I found another.

The second Crock-Pot looked vaguely familiar.  Stains from my six-alarm chili streaked its aluminum base but I could not recall using it.

Even more troubling was the third Crock-Pot snuggled behind the second.

This one was a small affair with a heavy glass top and a base the color of baked beans. Again, the pot looked familiar. I had seen it used at gatherings to keep food warm but I also had no clue how it got into my cupboard.

But then things got scary – while cleaning under the bottom shelf my hand brushed against a hard plastic object. It was unmistakably the control knob of yet another a Crock-Pot. In a panic, I flailed wildly under the shelf and to my utter amazement, I discovered a mine of slow-cookers, all of which I chucked into the hallway in a clatter cacophony of Crock-pots

There were Hamilton-Beach bases without pots and RIVAL pots without bases. There were old clay pots with no lids and modern creations so elegant that one could barely call them Crock-Pots. There was one faded earthen slow-cooker with handmade Navajo designs and a mysterious pot so darkened by soot that the print of a mastodon was barely visible.

Where had they all come from?

Had I tapped into the vein from which all Crock-Pots emerge?

How do we get all this stuff?

Back home the next morning I was still pondering the mystery, so I put it to my wife. “Honey, when is the last time we bought a crock pot?”

She set her fork down to consider the question. “I don’t know,” she said, “should I pick one up?”