Last night, in the midst of heating up some frozen leftovers, my microwave died.
For the record, whoever claimed that microwaves heat “from the inside out” was full of shit, and clearly never tried eating a microwaved meal that was hotter than the sun at the outer edges and still at Absolute Zero in the center.
In any case, I have no idea what killed the microwave and no desire to find out or to have it repaired, as, quite frankly, I hated that microwave anyway.
When I bought the thing all I knew was that I needed a microwave, it looked decent, and it was at about the mid-point in terms of price, being neither too cheap nor too expensive.
Once I got it home I discovered how annoying it was. Lacking a numerical keypad, setting cooking time involved using a combination of keys that set cooking time in ten minute intervals per push, one minute intervals per push, ten second intervals per push, and one second intervals per push respectively.
Those same keys had to be pushed in some arcane sequence for setting the clock, and of course the clock wasn’t programmed to understand how AM and PM work, as the time immediately following 11:59 AM was, according to its clock, 12:00 AM.
So when I got up this morning the item at the top of today’s agenda was “buy a new microwave.”
I decided that Wal-Mart would have a better selection and better prices than Target, so off to Wal-Mart I went, finding it packed with people who apparently just now realized that tomorrow is Easter and maybe they should think about making some Easter-related purchases.
Beyond the crowds filled with fat people, old people, fat old people, crying babies, and assorted other children running in circles like dogs chasing their tails, The Universe decided to take this opportunity to royally piss me off.
Apparently there’s some sort of heretofore unknown to me connection between Easter and sales of microwave ovens, as Wal-Mart had absolutely none in stock. There was a gaping hole in the shelves where the microwaves should have been that was comparable to what you see in the bottled water section of a grocery store in Northern Virginia when snow is predicted.
Seriously, WTF? Do parents put microwaves in their kids’ Easter baskets these days?
How could that possibly be anything other than The Universe fucking with me? My microwave dies on me just as the demand for microwaves exceeds supply. Coincidence? I think not.
There were other things I was planning to pick up there, but I was too pissed to deal with all of the human-shaped obstacles in my way, so I left without buying anything and headed to the comic shop, then on to Target, where the supply of microwaves was almost exactly as depleted as it had been at Wal-Mart.
Having little recourse – by which I mean I really didn’t feel like going anywhere else – I grabbed one of the few microwaves they had in stock, which, naturally, was the most expensive one they had.
At least the damn thing has number keys on it – and doesn’t provide any indication of whether it’s AM or PM, preventing it from claiming that it’s midnight at noon.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Manassas to have Easter dinner at Scott and Stacy’s, and they had originally planned to take me out to dinner on Monday for my birthday, but Stacy has some sort of PTO thing, so it’s been moved to Tuesday.
I haven’t really mentioned my birthday here much, in part because I haven’t really been posting much of anything at all, but mostly because...meh.
It’s really just another day. Granted, I did take the day off, but not because I had, or expected to have, any kind of plans: it was just a convenient excuse for a day off.
I haven’t even dropped any subtle or not-so subtle hints about gift ideas here, though I have explicitly asked for Carla Gugino.
Of course, I know that nobody I know is willing or able to get me Carla Gugino – or really anyone from a long list of suitable Carla Gugino alternatives – and honestly, when it comes to stuff I want and that it’s possible to acquire, the odds are pretty good that I’ll just buy it myself.
If I want something and don’t buy it, odds are it’s too expensive, and if I’m not willing or able to pony up the cash to acquire it for me, it’s a safe bet that no one I know is either.
Nor would I expect them to be.
Beyond going out shopping today I didn’t do much besides watching some of the recorded TV that had accumulated on my DVR.
In any case, I mostly wanted to share the story of the death of my microwave and the childish pranksterism of The Universe.
No comments:
Post a Comment