Microwave Live-to-Tell Stories: Cake

 


(Original photo stolen from jmv at Flickr)

Shirley, my childhood friend, was the first kid I knew whose parents owned a microwave oven. It must have been about 1976, making us 10 or 11, and I was over at Shirley's house one afternoon. Shirley was eager to show me the new machine, so she decided we needed a warm slice of cake. She cut a triangle wedge of yellow cake, plated it standing, and popped it into the Radarange.

 


(Original photo stolen from these guys)

"Lemme see . . . how about five minutes?" Shirley posed the question to no one, as I had never even seen a microwave, much less selected a cooking time.

We watched it cook for a few seconds, and then we noticed that the donkey was out running in the yard, so we ran outside to put him back in his field. This sort of thing happened frequently in both of our households -- daughter of a dairyman and daughter of a large animal veterinarian -- so we thought nothing of the interruption.

Until we went back into the kitchen.

While goats, sheep and deer were not unusual inside Shirley's house, smoke was unusual, and we remembered the yellow cake.

Well, it had started out yellow.

Shirley poked the black wedge with a tentative finger. It disintegrated in a puff of ash. Shirley shrugged, and we ran back outside to find the donkey again.

SO . . .

It's your turn. Tell me about your own personal Microwave Hell. Post it as a comment here, write a post on your own blog, or email it to me at foolery (at) clearwire (dot) net and I'll post it as a guest post this week. Tomorrow I will publish Bob Cleveland's story about a microwave and an egg. Yeah.

Comments

[Kathi D]

That was back when microwaves had gusto. I'm pretty sure you could get a good tan by standing in front of one.

I don't have any interesting microwave stories. Due to my stubborn resistance to "learning my lesson," I have, on more than one occasion (fine, MANY occasions) had a cup of melting butter explode all over the inside.

[all things BD]

We had our first microwave when I was about 12 years old, and hanging above it was one of those macrame hanger/shelf things that they had back in the day. On the bottom shelf part, about 18 inches above the microwave, sat a plant in a plastic pot. I don't know how long it was there, but one day as we were heating something in the microwave, the entire plant, plus all the dirt, flew up out of the pot and landed on the floor. Roots and all. That can't be good, right?

[Chesapeake Bay Woman]

Don't you hate it when you notice a donkey running around in your back yard?

Can't wait to hear Mr. Cleveland's egg story.