Up in flames

For longer than I can recall, our microwave has been, shall we say...MALFUNCTIONING. It does all kinds of cool tricks...like cracking things, for example. In the course of the past six months or so, we have cracked the microwave plate (that came with the thing to put in the bottom to set the food on...you know, the one that's SUPPOSED to be in there) and then another makeshift plate we used to replace the original plate. We've also managed to superheat one of our microwave-safe casserole dishes until it cracked all along the side...now it's a goner!

Cracking porcelain and glass isn't the only trick that thing can do! Oh no! It can also burn holes through popcorn bags and paper plates! A few days ago, I made Isaac a breakfast burrito in the microwave, and his paper plate came out with about a 2-inch diameter brown spot on the one side of it. A few times we've made popcorn and a hole has burnt right through the bag, which leads to popcorn kernels ZOOMING around freely inside the microwave.

And it's popcorn prowess is not limited to merely releasing the kernels from their paper bag prison. There's more! Sometimes, it absolutely refuses to pop the popcorn at all...it will go through the entire 3 minute cycle without so much as a single pop. That's a neat trick. OR, It will burn the kernels in a matter of 90 seconds, leaving us with char-corn...the kids have lovingly dubbed that trick 'cow plop' (mostly because it smells THAT bad in our house after the popcorn burns).

Well, last night, Lucas and I were having a date of sorts, getting caught up on our tivo'd shows, and Lucas asked if I wanted some popcorn. My response was, I don't think we can have popcorn because of our dumb microwave. Well, he, being the determined man that he is, decided HE would be able to magically make the microwave cooperate. So, he stood watch as the popcorn popped. From in the living room where I was waiting and listening, it seemed as though, from the fairly constant popping, that he was having some success. However, just as I heard the microwave door open, I heard him say something along the lines of "Aaahh." Turns out he was too slow, and at the last second, the bag actually caught fire. He put it out quickly and managed to salvage about 1/4 of the popped corn, but it smelled like fire, so we canned the whole thing and resorted to tortilla chips and queso dip (although we were slightly nervous about heating up the dip, so we did it on the stove top).

Needless to say, we deemed our dumb machine to be an official fire hazard. Today we took a family outing to Menards and bought a replacement. Tonight we had popcorn for a snack. No burning. No laser beam holes in the bag. No cow plop.

Life is good.