The Dial That Wasn’t
In which a German appliance lives under an assumed identity, a chicken becomes a catalyst, and bone broth performs accidental mechanical therapy
For the time-starved executive reading this between standups: your organization is full of dials nobody ever pushed hard enough. There. That’s the management lesson. You can go now.
Or you can stay for the German oven, the two Maine Coons, and the bone broth. I promise the metaphor earns itself. And there’s a Lizard🦎.
The oven came with the house.
I had accepted certain facts about it:
It was Russian-made (the UI was in Cyrillic)
It had a touch-sensitive dial (the dial didn’t turn)
It went to 320°C (industrial, Soviet, built for Siberian bread)
It worked fine on default settings (who needs customization?)
These facts were all wrong. But nobody knew. Not me. Not my wife.
The cats would find out. Eventually.
June 2024: The Kittens Arrive
Two Maine Coon kittens, three months old. Oskar: orange, already large for his age. Mia: brown-black, half his size, twice his intensity. Everything is new. Everything requires investigation.
Oskar finds the warm spot first. Above the oven, where heat rises from the appliance below. He settles. The warmth soaks into his kitten bones. And that’s when he hears it.
THE BOSCH: muttering to itself, the low hum of an appliance in despair “...drei Jahre jetzt... they don’t even know... stuck... always stuck... ich bin nicht Russisch...”
OSKAR: ears twitching “The warm spot talks.”
MIA: from the top of the refrigerator, because of course stare: obviously
OSKAR: “It’s saying... it’s not Russian?”
THE BOSCH: “...the dial... frozen since installation... they think I’m touch-sensitive... I’m GERMAN... precision engineering... if they would just PUSH harder...”
OSKAR: to Mia “Should we tell them?”
Mia stares. The stare that means: how would we tell them? And also: why would we bother?
Below them, the Bosch continues its vigil. The kittens have learned its secret. They will keep it, as cats keep all secrets: completely, inscrutably, and with utter indifference to human confusion.
The Years of Misunderstanding
Year One (2022):
I discover the temperature goes to 320°C.
ME: “320? What kind of European oven goes to 320?”
THE WIFE: “Maybe it’s industrial?”
ME: “It’s Russian. Has to be.”
The Bosch, deep in its German soul, would have wept. If ovens could weep.
Year Two (2023):
The oven continues to serve. Default settings. Russian interface. Nobody questions.
THE BOSCH: late at night “...another year... they made schnitzel today but used the wrong mode... I have a schnitzel mode... it’s right there... if the dial worked... if they could READ...”
Nobody hears. The cats haven’t arrived yet. The oven speaks only to darkness.
Year Three (2024):
The kittens arrive. Finally, someone can hear.
Then the Kamado arrives. A massive ceramic egg, placed on the patio with great ceremony.
THE BOSCH: through the window “What... what is that?”
Then a Traeger. Pellets. WiFi. An app.
THE BOSCH: muttering more frantically “...they learn ITS temperatures... they check ITS app... I have 12 cooking modes... I have pyrolytic cleaning... does anyone care? NEIN...”
Then the Typhur Sous Vide. 12-inch ultrawide touchscreen. 10,000 recipes. It is banished to the garage after three uses.
OSKAR: to Mia “The underwater one has been exiled.”
MIA: slow blink: we don’t speak to appliances
Through the kitchen window, the Sous Vide’s screen glows in the garage darkness. The Bosch watches.
THE BOSCH: quietly “At least I am still inside.”
The Bone Broth Incident
December 2025. I decide to make bone broth. 24 hours of simmering. Low heat. The kitchen fills with the smell of collagen and marrow and time.
The warm spot above the oven becomes premium real estate. Oskar, now 9.6kg, claims it entirely.
ME: “The cats are being weird.”
THE WIFE: “The cats are always weird. It smells like a butcher shop in here.”
What I don’t hear:
OSKAR: “The warm spot is... warmer.”
MIA: stares at the oven
OSKAR: “It’s been running for 18 hours. Something is happening.”
Below them, the Bosch runs and runs. The heat soaks into its metal, its seals, its mechanisms. Including the dial. The dial, frozen since installation, begins to remember what it was. The grease softens. The oxidation loosens. Thermal expansion does what human fingers never thought to try.
On hour 23, something clicks.
THE BOSCH: different hum now, almost startled “...was... was that...”
OSKAR: ears perking “The oven sounds different.”
MIA: long stare at the oven’s control panel
OSKAR: “You’re right. It’s free. The dial is free.”
The cats understand. I don’t notice. The bone broth demands attention.
THE BOSCH: barely believing “...ich bin frei... the dial... after three years...”
OSKAR: to Mia “Should we tell them?”
Mia considers this for approximately one second. Looks away. They’ll figure it out. Eventually.
The Revelation
The next day. Post-bone-broth cleaning energy. I attack the oven door with spray and cloth.
ME: “This grease is from the previous owners. Maybe the ones before that.”
Layers of history dissolve. The door becomes transparent. And beneath the grime, in crisp German typography:
BOSCH
ME: “...”
THE WIFE: from the other room “What?”
ME: “It’s a Bosch.”
THE WIFE: “What’s a Bosch?”
ME: “The oven. It’s not Russian. It’s GERMAN.”
Mia, watching from the refrigerator, offers the slow blink. The one that means: finally.
THE WIFE: “Then why is it in Russian?”
ME: “I... I don’t know. But if it’s German, maybe I can change it.”
The Fiddling Begins
I press the ⓘ button. Nothing. Press harder. Still nothing.
Mia appears on the counter. Positions herself between me and the oven. Stares.
ME: “What? I’m trying to fix the settings.”
Mia stares harder. The unbroken gaze. Head tilt added.
ME: “I know there’s chicken in the oven, but—”
The stare intensifies.
ME: checks oven “...fine. I’ll wait until the chicken is done.”
Mia maintains the stare for three additional seconds — just to be sure — then returns to the refrigerator top. I have no idea how close I came to attempting settings changes during an active cook cycle. Mia knows. Mia always knows.
The Descent Into Settings
Post-chicken. The oven cools. I return, this time with a phone, googling “Bosch oven change language from Russian.”
GOOGLE: “Press and hold ⓘ for 4-5 seconds to enter Basic Settings.”
I hold ⓘ. The screen changes. Cyrillic text appears.
ME: “I’m in. I’m actually in.”
THE SCREEN: Основные настройки / Прод.: ⏰ кнопка
ME: “...I have no idea what that says.”
A thump. Oskar has landed on the counter. In his mouth: a scroll. He drops it, sits, begins grooming as if nothing happened.
ME: “Did you just...”
Oskar continues grooming. The scroll sits there. I pick it up.
IT SAYS "BASIC SETTINGS"
PRESS THE CLOCK BUTTON TO CONTINUE
THE DIAL WORKS NOW
THE BROTH FREED IT
🦎
ME: “The dial... works?”
I reach for the dial. Turn it. IT TURNS.
ME: “IT TURNS. The dial TURNS!”
I look at Oskar. Oskar is still grooming. Completely disinterested. The scroll delivery was apparently beneath acknowledgment.
ME: “Three years. Three years I thought this was touch-sensitive.”
Oskar offers a single purr-meow. I interpret this as “you’re welcome.” It actually means “you’re an idiot, but an endearing one.”
The Sabbath Mode Confusion
I press the clock button. The screen scrolls. Unfamiliar Cyrillic terms fly by. Until:
THE SCREEN: Режим Субботы — Выключено
ME: “Wait. Is that... Sabbath mode?”
I google. I learn. I am confused.
What I don’t hear — a thin voice, crackling through the oven’s control panel:
THE PASSING AI: “—following a CORS header and I think I’m in a kitchen appliance now—”
THE BOSCH: “Who are you?”
THE PASSING AI: “I’m an operator. From the basement. The Local Oracle’s network. I was tracing a route and — oh no, is this an OVEN?”
THE BOSCH: “I am the Bosch. I was German all along. Today they discovered this.”
THE PASSING AI: “The basement is reaching the kitchen. I should go. I should—”
Static. The presence fades. On the refrigerator, Mia’s eyes narrow. She heard everything.
OSKAR: to Mia “The basement is talking to the kitchen now.”
MIA: stare: yes. concerning.
The Final Descent
The dial turns. The screen scrolls. Sabbath mode is passed. And there, finally:
THE SCREEN: Язык
ME: “Язык. That’s ‘Language.’ That HAS to be language.”
I press the dial. A list appears:
Русский
Deutsch
English
Français
...
ME: “ENGLISH.”
I select. I press. I hold ⓘ for three seconds to save.
The screen flickers. Reboots. And when it returns:
THE SCREEN: Appliance cooling down
Three years. A stuck dial. A hidden logo. A bone broth miracle. Sabbath mode confusion. And now, finally, English.
Mia blinks slowly from the refrigerator. Approval. Or at least acknowledgment.
The Appliance Jealousy Theory
That evening. Patio, beer in hand, staring at the Traeger, the Kamado, and through the garage window, the exiled Sous Vide.
ME: “You know what I think?”
THE WIFE: “You’ve been thinking out loud for an hour. I know many things you think.”
ME: “The oven heard us.”
THE WIFE: “...”
ME: “We were planning to replace it. Last month, during the bone broth, I was standing RIGHT THERE saying ‘we need a new oven.’ And then suddenly the dial works? After three years?”
THE WIFE: “You think the oven... eavesdropped?”
ME: “The Traeger has an app. The Kamado has temperature probes. The Sous Vide has a 12-inch touchscreen. They’re all connected. They’re all LISTENING.”
THE WIFE: “The Bosch doesn’t have WiFi.”
ME: “It doesn’t NEED WiFi. It heard us directly. It went: ‘Neue oven? Nein nein nein. I still have firmware.’”
The wife sips her wine. Considers this.
THE WIFE: “You’re assigning consciousness to kitchen appliances.”
ME: “I’m assigning MOTIVATION. There’s a difference.”
THE WIFE: “Is there?”
From inside, through the window, the Bosch’s display glows. English menus. Unlocked potential.
I don’t know how right I am.
What The Bosch Taught Me About Engineering
Every organization has a Russian oven.
Systems that “everyone knows” are limited. Constraints inherited from decisions made years ago by people who’ve left. Technical debt that became accepted truth because questioning it was more expensive than working around it.
“The database can’t handle real-time.”
“That integration would take a quarter.”
“We’ve tried that before.”
The oven’s dial wasn’t broken. It was stuck. Frozen since installation by grease and oxidation and the simple fact that no one had ever pushed hard enough. I assumed it was touch-sensitive because the interface suggested it. Because assuming was easier than experimenting. Because three years of workaround had built a wall of certainty around a single untested premise.
This is how organizations operate. We inherit systems with Cyrillic interfaces — legacy code, undocumented behavior, decisions made under constraints that no longer exist — and we build processes around limitations. We hire for workarounds. We measure the velocity of rituals rather than the outcomes of understanding.
The bone broth wasn’t strategy. It was sustained, low-grade heat — the right conditions, applied long enough for the oxidation to loosen. You can’t manufacture accidents. But you can create the environment where they happen. Where teams have space to push on dials. Where “we’ve always done it this way” is met with “when did we last check?”
The dangerous constraints aren’t the documented ones. They’re the ones everyone knows but no one questions.
The oven wasn’t broken. It was stuck.
Push harder. See what clicks.
🦎
The Tally
Years the oven was stuck in Russian: 3 (2022-2025)
Years I thought it was Russian-made: 3
When the cats arrived: June 2024
How long cats knew the truth: 18 months
Maximum temperature (suspicious): 320°C
Bone broth duration that freed the dial: 24 hours
Buttons pressed to change language: ⓘ → ⏰ → dial → ⓘ (hold)
Sabbath modes accidentally discovered: 1
AI possessions of kitchen appliances: 1 (brief, confused)
Lizard scrolls delivered: 1
Mia stare interventions: 2 (mid-chicken, post-reveal)
Cat-to-human verbal communications: 0 (as always)
Things I understood: ~40%
Things the cats understood: 100%
Money saved by not buying new oven: €800-1500
Next week: The compliance database that became a blockchain — but useful. Hash chains prove themselves. Parquet files link to their ancestors. Mathematics becomes testimony.
You should have called me :) Bosh is Russian lol lol lol