Microwave Oven Day

The microwave. No other item in my kitchen is as crucial to my survival. Except maybe the fridge. No, it’s definitely the microwave, which brings life back into fridge items.

My microwave is nothing fancy, one of those basic GE models most college freshmen get. It’s the kind with the buttons for “baked potato” and “popcorn.”

The microwave is often demonized, but really, on a daily basis it’s an item used without a second thought for all manner of things, from heating water for tea and instant oatmeal to defrosting bagels and meat. It reheats leftovers and melts cheese with no fuss.

G and I are probably more conscious of our microwave than most people. We have limited heat in our apartment–though we live in the tropics compared to other campus-area Madison apartments–and we rely heavily on a space heater. The trouble in our small digs is that if the heater is on when we use the microwave, we usually blow a fuse.

So we’re aware of our microwave, but do we truly use it to its full potential? Google “things to do with a microwave” and you will get some really scary stuff. People have put everything from CDs to insects in there. Seriously, why do more of our homes not blow up?

If I’d have better prepared, I would have tried a grape tonight. G has brought up more than once the fact that microwaving a grape sliced in half with the inside facing up will cause sparks. For a physics student, this is ridiculously exciting.

Alas, there are no grapes to be had in my household tonight, so instead I opted to try soap. After all, the microwave desperately needed a cleaning.

We cut off a third of a bar of unscented Dove. This is what happened.

The smell was so acrid, it was awful. Even though the soap puffed up like a mutant marshmallow, the end result looked like a flaky fried egg, sans yolk. I’m waiting for the smell to clear out before my next and final microwave mission of the night: popcorn.