How I got Even with that Oddball Microwave

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend Edition, January 28th, 2011

I would never have believed that my appliances could be of such interest, but this may say more about the lack of salacious activity in Fauquier County than it does about my microwave. Here’s one indicator of the activity-deprivation: Last week, I used the puerile term “booger” and got a chiding email. While such verbiage might pass the editor’s desk, it doesn’t mean it will be acceptable to readers.

When we left off, it was Thanksgiving, and the 5, 7, and Auto/Defrost buttons on my microwave had put themselves into early retirement.


We have the home warranty that covers built-in microwaves. They declared the microwave unworthy of repair and sent us a check for the replacement cost of the microwave (but not for removing the old one, or installing the new one, or the $50 deductible that delivered the damning verdict.) Sometime over the summer, that check got consumed in our normal expenses.


Anyway, I reasoned, it wasn’t as if the microwave was completely unusable. Don’t say I’m inflexible. If you take away my odd numbers, I know how to get even. If you take away my auto defrost button, I won’t have a meltdown. After all, I had my handy and loyal “Quick Defrost” button that could be pressed repeatedly. It had not abandoned me.


We are, despite the accusations of older generations, not completely spoiled. We are used to suffering in our own sort of way, even though their cataracts don’t allow them to see that in us. For example, I once forgot to take my travel coffee mug to school, and I actually had to drink coffee from a gigantic Styrofoam cup! Yes, it was a plain cup and didn’t even have a cover, so by the time I got down to drinking the coffee, it had reached that reprehensible state of tepidity.


And who hasn’t had to put up with zones where their cell phone reception is as dead as your social life? We are not merely acquainted with suffering; sometimes we are best friends with it. Just put me into the Great Depression and you’ll see what kind of dandelion soup I can whip up. Don’t accuse me of being an alien to suffering. I’ll put a booger on you.


The penultimate occasion to the microwave’s death was when the Clear/Off button died. Without the Clear/Off, we were gonners. Now, if we meant to heat something for 34 seconds (not 35, of course), but we accidentally pressed the three-minute express button, we could not simply press “Clear/Off” and start again.


Now, we had to be vigilant and quickly open the microwave door as soon as the requisite time elapsed. In this new, “unclear” way of microwave life, it was safer to use the main oven’s timer to remind us when to yank open the microwave. The remaining time, which would be something like “2:25” was left on the microwave, so the next time we wanted to heat something, we just shut the door and pressed, “Start.” If you needed more time, when the 2:25 were expended, we could (finally) start anew.


Over Thanksgiving, at the height of our microwave misadventures, my incredibly sweet sister-in-law from Alaska accidentally punched in 90:00 into the microwave. Yes, ninety minutes of micro-waving pleasure, and no way to clear it. We laughed and challenged each other to use up all of this “banked” time. There was the occasional overflow of milk when we forgot to set the other timer, but no one cried over it. Instead, we rejoiced at the reduction in the sentenced time.


It felt like we were on a shopping spree in “Wheel of Fortune” and had ninety minutes to spend. “For one minute and thirty seconds, I’d like to heat up this mug of milk…for another two minutes, I’ll warm up this plate of leftover brown rice and chicken curry.” It was hard to be a big spender in the microwave time world. And also, it took a lot of time.


We cheered as if we had finished a marathon when we were ushered out of the nineties.


One fiercely windy morning a month later, our power failed, effectively resetting the microwave. It returned with a vengeance. It usurped power and demanded that we press “Clock” to set the time. Of course, the Clock button was now nonfunctional, rendering the entire beast unusable. We had no way to clear it. So we finally decided to issue the death certificate.


At Christmas, a quick trip to Tolson’s Appliance, which has been in business longer than any of us, squelched our microwave misery. It’s been a great way to start the New Year.

Microwave meltdowns, teenage trauma, and true love

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, December 29th, 2010


My microwave is on the fritz, or is it “on the blitz?” Whatever we call this abode of dying appliances, the Great Electric Elysian Fields of Junk, my microwave oven is headed there. In spirit, it’s there already, but in the physical, its carcass remains hulking over our stove, its electronic display forever taunting me to “Press Clock” to reset the time.


It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it? I guess that depends on what my competition for your attention is: A crying baby? A pile of bills? The Washington Post?


Thank you for peeling yourself away from that engrossing nutrition information label on your jug of milk.


My microwave has been shutting itself down in stages. It started this summer. It wasn’t one of those dramatic events, like when a toddler or preschooler has a complete, and of course, public, meltdown. There was no sudden clunking sound, no shower of sparks, no disturbing smoke. It was nothing obvious like that. It was much more subtle and invidious, like carbon monoxide poisoning, or the creeping sarcasm of a teenaged child, which sometimes feels like the same thing. My microwave slowly and painfully dug its heels in and refused to cooperate in matters that it had once anticipated and gleefully participated in. It so happens that my microwave is about five years old. In my estimation, that equates to fifteen in microwave-years?


I first noticed that the “5” on the touch-pad wouldn’t work. Perhaps it would work; but it refused to do so for me. The more pressure I applied at the keypad, the more insistent it became. Nothing could make it produce a five. Was it a nuisance? Yes. Was it debilitating? No.


Microwaving and parenting are a lot alike. It’s not that you get wonderful and instant results with a warm and toasty feeling. It’s that you learn that there’s only so much pressure you can apply to any one point without the child balking altogether.


But fear not. It’s commonly believed that parents are smarter than their progeny, despite repeated attempts at the offspring to prove otherwise. Microwaves are the same way. We could work around this. If you needed to heat something for “1:45” we just avoided the situation by heating it for one second less or more, thereby avoiding the 5 altogether. This is the same way we avoid certain triggers for certain children. Mushrooms cause a meltdown? Never serve that child mushrooms. Housework causes a child to sulk and do a slovenly job? Toss all the yard-work and lifting chores at that one.


There are even intricate ways of tricking the microwave. Bribes work well with children, but they hold little appeal for appliances. For five exact minutes of heating, one could start the microwave with four minutes and then press the “Add 30 sec.” button twice, so Ha! The microwave was not quite as clever as it had thought itself to be. Another alternative was to punch in “4:60” as the cooking time. I wish all of life’s problems were this simple to solve. Ditto on parenting.


Did I still love my microwave? Don’t I love my children? Of course I did, and of course I do. We all have our flaws (although most of us spend a lifetime seeking ours and wondering, if perhaps, we might not be that rare exception to the rule). We cannot let minor aggravations steal our joy. So the five wouldn’t work, and we could live with that. Then, the Auto Defrost button decided that it had put in a full lifetime’s worth of service (in this case, five years), so it didn’t plan on working either. Not that big of a deal, because we could at least use the Quick Defrost button repeatedly. Sometimes I feel like our whole life is a series of work-arounds.


When news of the non-cooperating microwave made its way around the house, someone suggested we apply the Master Reset Philosophy, usually reserved for computers with blue screens, to the microwave. Just unplug it for a few minutes and then plug it back in. That should reset the circuits, and all would be well.


I decided to give it a try. What could it hurt? After restoring power to the microwave, not only did the 5 and the Auto/Defrost not work, now the 7 had defected to the enemy camp. It, too, refused to work.


By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I had to instruct my daughters as they came home from college that, “Oh, by the way, the 5,7, and the Auto Defrost” buttons don’t work. They gave me a look that seemed to say, “Is that the cause of, or the result of, our father being in the hospital at the moment?”


My husband is the sort of person who loves gadgets, which is supposed to define the stereotypical male. But his love extends beyond the lusting state, and also includes the maintenance aspect of love, which is a truer, and sadly, rarer, form of love.


To finish this love-story will require another week, and possibly another microwave.