While stir-frying vegetables I noticed a patch of ceramic missing in the middle of my six-month-old lifetime warranty pan. After lunch I cleaned up the pan and drove it back to Kerrisdale, where I bought it.

Travelling west on King Edward I turned left on Marguerite, a few blocks east of where I usually turn, to see what’s new in a neighbourhood I rode my bike through as a kid. At the southeast corner is Shaughnessy Elementary, where my Little League baseball team practiced forty years ago, the bucktoothed grin of Nicky Dimitri looming large.

The field as I remember it was an expanse of dirt and gravel, where sliding into second base meant the destruction of one’s pants, or at the very least their reassignment to the laundry hamper that night. But this field was covered in the deepest greenest grass. The backstop was still there, but the baseball diamond was not. A girl stood by the fence, checking her messages.

At the shop I told the manager that I was at a loss as to why my pan had chipped. I assured her that I did not start the pan on HIGH, nor did I use anything other than non-metal utensils. She nodded and said that she would “put a work order on it,” have the rep check it out the next time he was in. Because they don’t provide loaners, I purchased the next pan up.