Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Possessed Appliances

Our microwave looks like something from prehistoric
times. It has no digital display, no
buttons and is adorned with two old school knobs, one to choose power setting
and the other to select the number of minutes. It’s a real gem and was bought, surprisingly, about three months
ago. Our old microwave was fairly
modern in comparison but it started exhibiting poltergeist behavior of late:
turning on randomly, continuing to cook when the door was open (NOT good) and making
odd noises when it was in use. I don’t deal well with possessed appliances and
I told my husband that it had to be replaced immediately.





Microwave
It was close to Christmas when our microwave broke so our
replacement budget was tight. I had little hope that we would be able to find a
microwave for under $50. We made our
trek to Wal-Mart and, low and behold, the very first microwave on the shelf (made by the
illustrious and well-known small appliance company, Galanz) was a whopping
$34.99. We debated between the Galanz
model and the GE but the GE was $55.99 and we could hardly justify spending an
additional $20 when it was not absolutely necessary. So, we purchased the Galanz. I was quite skeptical of this machine with its 1985 knobs and bizarre
name. I filed it under reliability next
to the Broksonic VCR that we bought for $22.00 when our old one died. It has, however, survived two and a half
months in our household with nary an issue and makes for a humorous
conversation piece.





The night of my son’s slumber party, Camden (age 4) ran into
the kitchen while I was cooking popcorn and said, “Wow. What is that?” I told him it was a microwave. He replied, “Where are the buttons?” I explained that it had knobs instead of buttons. Awestruck, he paused for a minute and
yelled, “Hey guys. Come see this
microwave. It’s really cool.” Within seconds there were three kids staring
in wonder at my microwave saying things like, “wow” and “cool.” That $34.99 turned out to be money well
spent. My house is like a fun factory
when popcorn is cooking.



1 comment:

  1. Do you remember when we were growing up and your parents got their first microwave and it was about the size of a small Hybrid automobile? Ours had its own large rolling cart in the kitchen that took up about a fourth of the room.
    After my parents finally got a newer model in the mid-80s, my brother and I would use (much to my mom's displeasure) the large cart from the old microwave in our basement (smooth concrete floors) to push each other around on it and see who could hold on the longest before being projectiled off of it.
    You guys are kickin' it old school when you're nukin'.

    ReplyDelete