rammi.glomp.me

// November 15th, 2009 // Me, NaBloPoMo

These are my microwaves, timed for you, heating your foodstuffs, making you free… Yeah, doesn’t exactly have a ring to it, does it? But I can imagine people in the Church of Microwaveable Objects singing this with renewed vigour.

And yes, my house has three microwaves. Don’t judge me. They have multiple uses, as makeshift tables (as shown above) and storage cabinets. Here’s the problem, though. All three work (and two are almost new), but I only use one – the little old one on the right. And I’ve not worked out how to open the other two either.
“Why?” I hear you ask (well, you could care less, but I’m going to tell you anyway).
Now, before I launch into my long rant, let it be known that my cooking skills aren’t exactly Jamie Oliver standard. Despite most of my family being accomplished cooks (and my mother previously owning a Thai restaurant), the skills haven’t exactly been passed down into this generation. Ditto her geography ones. I can cook when forced to, and most of the time, my stuff is edible, but it’s burnt and grotesque-looking.
This is where my microwave comes in. It’s no Funcooker, but saves my ass on the occasions when I just don’t want to be frustrated at my lack of talent in the kitchen any more.

If microwaves are meant to make everything happy and simple, why are they getting so stupidly complicated?

Take my ‘baby’, for example. She/he was bought several years ago, has a power setting, a timer setting, and a little button I can push to open the door. What more could a girl want from a microwave? I can reheat the food I burnt the night before in it, defrost stuff, and cry when I forget about the food I’ve left in it. [I'm quite absent-minded; it does happen!]

Then you get the newer versions… Dude, I just want to heat things up. It’s all very well having a grill option, but if I wanted a grill, I WOULD BUY A GRILL – We actually do have a grill, making this microwave’s grill option useless for me. I don’t want to spend ages twisting a knob just so I can get to the right option to set the time, as opposed to setting the convection. Also, how do I open the damn thing? I’m pretty sure one of the buttons does it eventually, but my brief interaction with it ended in tears – the tears being “OMG WAII DON’T YOU WORK???!”

*cries and flails helplessly* What are these knobs supposed to do?! I DON’T WANT TO SET A COMBINATION OR CONVECTION OR THE WEIGHT, I JUST WANT TO USE THE DAMN MICROWAVE! At least tell me how to open the stupid thing!

I know the simple answer to this problem would be to read the instruction manual, but where’s the fun in that? It’s a microwave, it’s meant to make life simpler! It might not help that I don’t know where the instruction manual is, either. I don’t read instruction manuals for any gadgets I get and they seem to work fine until I break them, so what’s the difference here?
…I think I need to start a “one microwave per person” plan in the house. Otherwise, the only microwave I know how to use will soon die a slow and painful death, and then what will I eat? I’ll actually have to learn how to cook. *shudders*

Old microwaves really do do it better.

[If you've made it this far, it means you've read a 500 word rant on a simple kitchen appliance. Hooray! Oh, and you've probably also viewed the detailed pictures of these microwaves I spent ages taking. Great use of your £500 camera and Flickr subscription there, Rammi. *claps*]