I know jack shit about cooking, but I feel like you are occasionally supposed to use the fancy vent thingy above the stove - say, if you light your grilled cheese on fire or accidentally toss your boyfriend's ugliest shirt on the flame.
My mother does not seem to be of this faith. When I tried to turn on the vent because the kitchen was smoking (okay, not smoking so much as something was apparently burning on the bottom of the oven) she nearly tackled me.
"We don't use the vent. The birds get unhappy," she said like we were speaking in spy code.
"The fish flies at night."
She gave me this amazing, confused, disappointed face she perfected when I was seven and decided I wanted to wear a veil to school...and nothing else.
"No, there are birds that live in there so we don't turn the vent on. We've been doing this since you were a kid."
I had many questions, like why they don't fly south for the winter, but my mother was unperturbed. When I asked her why I didn't know this, she answered very simply, "You never, not a day in your life, attempted to cook here. I hope that when you have a house of your own, you'll keep an ear out for nests and keep the vent off."
