Friday, February 04, 2005

Microwave Madness

The microwave turned on by itself the other day.

You know, that just shouldn't happen. The procedure is that you push the door button, toss in your cold whatever, hit a cook button, wait for the beep and snarf away.

Not this time. The microwavce turned on by itself. No door button, no cold whatever, no cook button. Just started up.

Worse yet, I couldn't turn it off. All the buttons were frozen. Only opening the door stopped the madness. I reset the circuit breaker. No effect. Once power was reapplied it started up again. All by itself. Not a good scene, I assure you. The microwave can't decide when to cook on it's own, especially when there's nothing to cook inside. So, to add metaphor to metaphore: our microwave was toast.

That has led me on a not so merry chase to find a replacement. Of course, our microwave is built-in and not any old microwave will fit. All the building-in was done a decade ago and guess what? Microwaves have changed since then. So, now I'm looking at a Major Project instead of simply replacing the thing. Oh, well.

The Home Depot guy said, "We get you folks in here all the time. We don't stock a replacement, but, then again, nobody does. Good luck. Oh, by the way, you might as well move, or remodel you entire kitchen. Have a nice day."

Thanks.

Who needs a microwave, anyway? Well to be in my house everybody does! How am I going to warm my coffee, cook my oatmeal, thaw out the mastadon? It goes on and on. Yep, the microwave has become one of those kitchen appliances as necessary as an oven or a sink.

The good news is that GE does make a replacement. The bad news is that it's not "exactly" the same size as our dead microwave (actually, it's not dead in a technical sense, just crazy) and something will get bent when I install it.

It's not looking good for the home team.

1 comment:

Andrew Purvis said...

Oh, but think of all you could do to open up the kitchen, provide more liberal (not "California" liberal: that is illegal in Texas, I think) cupboard space. A family member recently made room for a larger side-by-side, got a new microwave, got a new cooktop, got a new oven, and got new cupboards (some that pass through to the kitchen table!). The floor got a makeover, too, but I'm still a little bitter about the no-shoes rule during visits.