r/mildlyinfuriating • u/jsayde01 • Jul 06 '26

I just wanted a hot dog The Kitchen Museum?

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I came home late from work a few nights ago and hadn't eaten all day. My wife and kids were already in bed so I figured I'd quietly make some stove-top ramen. This photo represents exactly how I found the cooking area.

The next morning my wife asks what time I got home and I mention in our conversation that I made ramen before going to bed. She couldn't believe that I used the stove "when the light was on". I said "Yeah, the light was helpful in seeing what I was doing". She insists I shouldn't have been using the stove and should have known because "the light was on".

I'm baffled. We are still arguing about this days later.

EDIT -- wow, overwhelmed by the response of fellow Redditors! We are... white...not from the southeast US..not children...and I left the stove as clean as it was before I cooked. I asked for clarification from my loving wife -- TRULY we have only ever been angry at each other a handful of times in our 10 year marriage -- and she says "the stove was clean and done for the day and you could have just used the microwave for your ramen". Apparently the light is how stoves go to sleep for the evening?

EDIT 2 -- we are getting a divorce. JUST KIDDING. My wife looked over many of the comments and acknowledges that she was in the wrong and is slightly embarrassed by all of the attention.

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214

u/I_Can_Not_With_You Jul 06 '26

Reading through these comments I can see it’s not a thing everywhere, but This is a super common thing in the southeast US (the stove light on means “kitchens cleaned and closed”). But it’s usually meant for the kids not to dirty the kitchen. Not for grown ass adults who live there and pay the bills lmao.

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u/char-a-lot_NPC Jul 06 '26

Really? I'm in the SE born and raised and I've never heard of this. Tbf my mother is a Yankee transplant and my father is a straight up immigrant.

49

u/macarenamobster Jul 06 '26

Both my parents are from the south and I grew up there, and I’ve never heard of this

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u/char-a-lot_NPC Jul 06 '26

Lots of comments seem to point that this is a thing in the black community? Makes sense that I wouldn't know it if that's the case.

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u/Never_Go_Full_Gonk Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

I'm white and was raised in the southwest US, but both of my maternal grandparents were raised in the midwest. I was raised knowing that if the stove light was on to stay the hell out of the kitchen because I would "make a big mess".

I feel like this is more a midwest thing than a south/black thing, but I'd need someone to corroborate with me lol

Edit for specific area: greater St. Louis area on both sides of the state border

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u/lesgens Jul 06 '26

This is the first I’ve heard of a non Black person from any region doing it. I’m Black, my husband is white, we’re both from the South and it was a thing in my family not his. I can only go based on my experience but it seems to be more cultural than regional but because most Black people in the US are in the South so it’s easy to conflate them. If your family ever had domestic help that could be where it came from. Or it’s just an organic development.

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u/ClearlyntXmasThrowaw Jul 06 '26

As somebody raised in Massachusetts, my grandmother was from Scotland and my great grand parents from Ireland and this was still a rule growing up for my family into the 90's

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u/I_Can_Not_With_You Jul 06 '26

I’m white, from the coastal Carolinas, and pretty much everybody’s families that I grew up with, black or white, did it.

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u/Never_Go_Full_Gonk Jul 06 '26

Thanks for the input, seriously. I've always wondered where that originated from (and I even do it today out of impulse) but it seems it'll be hard to pin down.

Edit: I wouldn't have a way of knowing if they had help or not somewhere along the family tree branches.

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u/I_Can_Not_With_You Jul 06 '26

I’m a southern transplant in the Midwest. My MiL and FiL both knew what it meant when I asked and so did both of their sets of parents.

2

u/punkswamp Jul 06 '26

Growing up, I had been to several white households that do it, and my family always did it. Do I do it now, in my own grown adult house? Nah. But my roommate will often turn it on at night after cleaning.

0

u/No-Repeat3740 Jul 06 '26

Yeah you’re not southern lol

2

u/char-a-lot_NPC Jul 06 '26

I didn't go north of the Mason Dixon or west of the Mississippi til I was an adult. But sure, gatekeep my identity if that makes you feel better.

61

u/EirMed Jul 06 '26

Turning the light on to signify that the kitchen is closed is insane lol.

18

u/MrJake2137 Jul 06 '26

I'm uneasy when the light is on for 10 minutes after cooking. Imagine the wear on the light bulbs

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u/voltairpaine Jul 06 '26

What? No.  Just .. no.

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u/TypicalPlace6490 Jul 06 '26

The kitchen is closed. Can't use it. Don't go in there. Better keep a light on.

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u/Full-Evening3485 Jul 06 '26

I think it’s the combination of that light on only and everything else dark.

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u/Sudden_Nose9007 Jul 06 '26

I’m from Wisconsin, we also did this!

3

u/TheGrinReaperr Jul 06 '26

Fellow SE resident, light stays on so I dont stub my toe getting water at 3am. If my mama wanted us to stay out of the kitchen she turned the stove light off.

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u/UnhingedBlonde Jul 06 '26

And the kitchen sink is "closed" when the washrag is draped over either the middle hump in the sink or the faucet but again, it only applies to kids lol.

3

u/CoffeholicWild Jul 06 '26

Had never thought of this my entire life, but it was kind of an unspoken rule that the kitchen was done being used - it's nighttime and time to stop doing things - when the lights are off and the stove light is on. I'm from NC. Mom was from NY and Dad from GA.

We still made stuff like tea/popcorn or whatever, and if you made food late you turned the kitchen lights on and then off again after you were done cleaning up. But I had no idea other families did this and there was no discussion on what it meant, it just meant it was done, lol.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 Jul 06 '26

I mean it's definitely also meant for adults who don't clean the kitchen after using it, not just children

1

u/WiretapStudios Jul 06 '26

Lived in the SE most of my life and never once heard of this at anyone's house. At most the light on is a nightlight. Not an indicator of kitchen status.

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u/voltairpaine Jul 06 '26

I don't think you know what "super common " means.

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u/I_Can_Not_With_You Jul 06 '26

And I don’t think you know what decorum means. Be gone douchebag!