Burn, Baby, Burn
I like my new microwave. It’s shiny and clean and pretty and not on fire.
Yes, I said “not on fire.” Because my last microwave? Died rather spectacularly yesterday, with flames and everything.
I’d noticed a few months ago that our microwave sometimes added time to whatever we’d set. Annoying, for sure, but nothing untoward happened and it stopped almost as soon as it had started, so we figured it was just an aberration. Or maybe my imagination, suggested my husband. Yeah, right.
Yesterday morning, Honey put his breakfast sandwich in the microwave as usual. And, as usual, he walked off to do something else while it cooked; in this case, he went to our bedroom at the back of the house to do some work on the computer. I was in the living room, trying to catch up on email before Miss L and I took off for the gym.
About the time I smelled something, I realized that I’d never heard the microwave stop running. “Hey, Honey! What are you cooking out here? The microwave hasn’t shut off yet.”
I should probably point out that I was on the other side of the wall from the kitchen yet did not pry my expansive behind off the couch to check myself. Instead, I waited for my husband to check on it, which involved a somewhat slow mosey from the bedroom to the kitchen where he found his breakfast in FLAMES. Real, honest-to-goodness flames. And smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. I could hear all this huffing and blowing and coughing on the other side of the wall, not that I interrupted my precious Internet time to go and see what was actually going on. Instead, I started quizzing my husband, asking for a play by play while he could barely catch his breath from all the smoke. Oh, and he was trying to put out a fire with his own breath because we don’t own a fire extinguisher.*
We are incredibly lucky because the extent of the damage was one microwave (a hand-me-down from my parents) and a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich. Poor Honey has endured lots of jokes at his expense, even though it really wasn’t his fault. As for me, I lucked out and found a bigger, fancier microwave on clearance (50 percent off!) at Target.
If only the burnt microwave smell would go away …
*Yes, I’m rectifying that.
