Near Death Experience...

When I was in college I purchased my first microwave. Nothing fancy. Just a cheap little appliance to make it through college. Unfortunately, and to the utter dismay of my mother, I have kept that microwave way beyond college. "Let me buy you a new one," my mother kept saying as she looked at it with disgust. I would say no and that it is working fine and I don't need a new one.

So what if I had to microwave my food MUCH longer than the frozen dinner directions said. Or that when I made popcorn I never knew if the 2 minutes & 30 seconds were going to burn it or not pop the popcorn at all. It was mine. It still worked and I had no intention of replacing it.

Well about a month or so ago, I came home late from work and I was really tired and hungry. I put a frozen dinner in the microwave as I booted up my PC to read my email and harass my friends who happened to be online. Next thing I knew there was this stench! I got up to investigate and saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen from the microwave. I quickly stopped the microwave. Then I immediately noticed that the timer showed 20 minutes left instead of 2 minutes. I took the extremely burnt dinner out of the microwave and put it on the patio. I chalked up the incident to exhaustion and made a vow not to cook again while I am so tired.

I had to open all the windows and doors to air out my apartment. It seemed to take forever for the odor to dissipate. I used febreze and plug ins and any other air freshener I could think of. It only seemed to make matters worse. Eventually the odor disappeared and I continued on using my microwave.

Well, about 2 weeks or so ago another incident occurred. This time I was fully awake and I knew for SURE that I only put my item in there for 2 minutes. Again I was sitting at my computer and smelled a stench. I quickly ran to the kitchen and saw the smoke. I stopped the microwave and notice the timer still had 10 minutes left. I pulled out my plate with my burnt snack on it and placed it under running water. The snack was burnt so badly that it ruined my plate. I ended up throwing the entire plate away.

Again I had to go through the same routine of airing out my apartment. This time I picked up the microwave and took it to the dumpster. Two near death experiences was enough for me to realize it was time to replace my appliance. And I knew if I did not throw the microwave away right then, I would have talked myself into continuing to use it.

So here it is 2 weeks later and I STILL do not have a microwave. What's the hold up? Well, I don't think about it until I go to use it. The other night I was going to watch a movie and thought some microwave popcorn would be great. Whoops! I ended up eating saltines instead. Another time I went to eat my left overs. I had no microwave to warm them up so I ate them cold.

Tonight I finally looked at several microwaves at Wally World. I saw a couple that were pretty cheap and then came across a couple that had all kinds of bells and whistles. I did not have the time to really compare the items, but I knew that I wanted to buy something a little better than one just to get me by.

In the meantime, however, I got a shit load of microwave popcorn and a freezer full of frozen meals. I guess I better not wait too long. There are only so many cold left overs a person can stand!