A Microwave Tale

Once upon a time, in the year 1983, we decided that our lives were prosperous enough that we could afford to enrich our home with the purchase of a microwave oven. I'll never forget the excitement I felt as we opened the box! BJ was just six months old and we had been heating his bottles on the stove. How I loved setting the bottle in the microwave, pushing just a couple of buttons, and then, viola! Only seconds later his milk was warm enough to drink! No more pacing around the kitchen for what seemed like hours waiting for the stove to heat those bottle! It was thrilling.

Truthfully, I did enjoy this microwave for more than just bottles. We soon were cooking vegetables (Kim's fav? Broccoli with melted cheese), thawing out meat, and heating water for a cup of hot chocolate. Rarely a day went by without its use. Along with the microwave we received eight books with microwave recipes. We tried out many of the recipes, including one for banana bread, which was awful! To this day I still have trouble eating banana bread after that big failure!

Though the years our faithful microwave served us well. After about ten years, the button to open the door fell off. No problem we just used duct tape to secure it back in place! It may not be the prettiest sight, but our microwave just continued to cook, thaw, and heat year after year.

Last year our poor little microwave started struggling. Things that once took only a few seconds to heat were now taking longer and longer. However, we loved our little microwave, so we just planned our cooking strategy to include a few extra seconds or minutes as the case may be. Then, several months ago, we found that the numbers 1-4 no longer worked. We chose to view this as a challenge as we continued using our microwave. We found that we could exercise our brains with each use to figure out how long to cook something without using 1, 2, 3, or 4. Our minds grew stronger with each use as we calculated and multiplied numbers to figure out the correct cooking times coupled with the low wattage.
Apparently our friends do not appreciate the value of this mind exercise. Yesterday Cyn, Marilyn, and Tanissa presented me with an early Christmas present. Yes, they joined forces and presented me with a gift card to be used exclusively on a new microwave. I'll admit, I am getting excited about the prospect of new, powerful, and fully functioning unit. However, I am sad saying good-bye to an old, dear friend who has continuously served our family for over 25 years.

Cyn, Marilyn, and Tanissa may you be blessed for your thoughtfulness and generosity! What a terrific surprise!

Hmmm, now to go shopping . . . .