The Microwave Conundrum: Our Generation’s Greatest Test of Moral Rectitude

The microwave oven has become an indispensable part of everyday life. One would be shocked to walk into a kitchen without one. Their ubiquity is so prevalent that many Americans use them every day of the week for food preparation. I believe, though, that even such a repetitive and thoughtless activity reveals a great deal about human intelligence and morality.

The first question is how someone sets the timer on the microwave, and it speaks volumes about whether the microwave user is a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal or the sort of reasonably competent member of society who knows how to turn right at a red light, flushes the toilet in public bathrooms, and has never voted for someone who is both stupid and arrogant enough to make up new words by accident then claim an intentional neologism.

Imagine you have to microwave something for a minute and a half. It’s a pretty common amount of time for something coming out of the refrigerator and it illustrates a point. Most people would probably hit the “1” key, the “3” key, the “0” key, then start the microwave. Most people are idiots. You might not personally know anyone who will go to see the new Nic Cage movie “Season of the Witch,” at least not seriously, but Hollywood producers decided enough people would see it to give him this movie on the heels of “Bangkok Dangerous,” “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans,” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” That means that there is a huge number of insanely stupid people who are going to see abysmal Nic Cage movies, one after another. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans?!?! That must be the worst name for a movie of all time. It has two different punctuation marks and I still have no idea what the movie is about. Granted, “2 Fast 2 Furious” is a bad name, but at least I can figure out that it’s a sequel to “The Fast and the Furious.” The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans sounds like an over-budget gay Skinemax flop. And by the way, how does “Raising Arizona” not make it into the Nic Cage’s IMDB Top 4? His career includes so many movies that were so bad that they became cult hits that they have completely overwhelmed his really good breakout performance. That would be like Jefferson Airplane renaming itself and making such terrible music over decades that people forgot about White Rabbit, Somebody to Love, and the band's role in the Summer of Love because its subsequent music was such an abortion. Wait a minute, that also happened. At least nobody goes to see Jefferson Starship play to crowds of 200 at Indian Casinos. Cage has so many awful movies that people remember them for being awful at the expense of his good movies. AND PEOPLE STILL GO TO SEE HIS MOVIES!

[RIGHT- Okay, the mustache was a bad decision, but his career decisions make the mustache decision look brilliant.]

What does this have to do with microwaves, you ask? My point is that just because a lot of people press "1, 3, 0, start," that doesn’t make it the best way to start a microwave. If you’re going to press "1, 3, 0, start," you might as well be sentencing yourself to watching National Treasure 2 on loop for the rest of eternity. You realize that microwaves operate in seconds, right? Instead of "1, 3, 0, start," you can just press "9, 0, start" and get the exact same result. You’re saving seconds! You know what’s even better than that? Pressing "9, 9, start" and avoiding the clumsy process of moving your finger from the 9 to the 0. Who has time for that crap? The point of the microwave is to save time. If you’re going to go to the hassle of pressing extra keys and moving your hand around unnecessarily, you might as well preheat the oven and reheat your burrito the old fashioned way. In fact, if you have so much free time that you can waste it pressing extra microwave keys, you might as well get two sticks, rub them together, and cook your Lean Cuisine over an open flame.

The issues with microwave use do not end at startup. The questions at the end of the microwave cycle are equally dire. Everyone who has ever used a microwave has waited through those final, inconvenient seconds. If you have used a public microwave with people waiting to take their turns who are secretly annoyed that your dish is not already warm, then the waiting is even worse. The thing I don’t understand is why people wait for the final buzzer to sound. You are not waiting for the New Year’s ball to drop on Times Square or the door to open at Wal-Mart on black Friday- the door will open and the food will come out without warping you into a black hole even if you open the door three seconds early. Waiting for the buzzer is inane. Humans do not have to be so Pavlovian as to wait for the sound to eat, especially when the sound is grating and abrasive. Maybe if the microwave manufacturers had the machine play a few bars of Zeppelin at the end, there would be some reason to wait for it. If I ever made a microwave, God knows it would play the riff from Kashmir, and I'd be like "Hell yeah! Burrito time!"

What is the thought process that leads to not opening the microwave for those last few seconds while you wait with your hand on the door handle? Is it that the wrapper on your burrito said that it takes three minutes to heat up? I have news for you- the last three seconds are not going to make the difference between a perfectly warm burrito and an uncooked one. If it isn’t done, it’s going to take more than three seconds to finish it, so you might as well just open the door and check before you reset the timer for another thirty seconds (or 33 seconds, if you’ve been paying attention). In all likelihood, the burrito is going to be stale and burned on the outside but frozen on the inside no matter how closely you follow the instructions, so you might as well not burn any calories worrying or waste extra time on it.

Now you’re thinking to yourself, “yeah, microwaved food sucks!” And it does, but the point is to make it edible faster, and it accomplishes that goal. If you want good food, it’s going to take time. Whining about your microwave dinner is like telling Ernest Hemingway to write a book in 3 weeks then complaining that it isn’t a literary masterpiece. It’s like telling Pam Anderson that she has 5 minutes to do her hair and makeup before doing a TV appearance. Rushing things makes them worse. Microwaves are a way to rush things. So get it over with and stop complaining.