40somethingmag - Kat Marie - It-s A Great Fucki... File

Getting it up to my third-floor walk-up took two hours, a case of beer for the neighbor’s nephew, and the permanent loss of feeling in my left thumb.

The oven, as it turns out, was in a dusty warehouse in New Jersey. The seller, a man named Vinny who smelled like regret and Pall Malls, loaded it into my SUV. “It’s a beaut,” he said. “Just don’t touch the right side. Or look at it wrong.” 40SomethingMag - Kat Marie - It-s a great fucki...

The moral of this lifestyle story isn’t “don’t try new things.” It’s that at 40-something, the entertainment is rarely the oven, the vacation, or the perfect party. The entertainment is watching your friends help you carry a 300-pound mistake back down three flights of stairs the next morning, laughing so hard that Vinny the oven guy gives you your money back just to make you stop. Getting it up to my third-floor walk-up took