It's Alive!!!!

Perhaps it’s because I’m not what you’d call a worrier. Perhaps it’s because I’m just lazy. Perhaps it’s because it isn’t my appliance. Whatever the reason, I just don’t find it at all disconcerting that my microwave is either self-aware or possessed.

Let me explain. The microwave in question was one of the appliances provided for me in my apartment, and it’s recently begun to act very strange. It all started a few months ago when it began to randomly turn itself on. I’d walk into the kitchen and find it humming away happily, the light inside glowing brightly. Hoping that this was somehow an advanced feature, like you’d find if there was such a thing as an iMicrowave, I’d look into it to see if a mug of hot chocolate had spontaneously generated for me, but that was never the case, which was always disappointing. Actually, it was just the inside fan and the light that were not. It wasn't actually generating any heat. Still, after this happened a few times, I had to face the facts that I had a rogue microwave on my hands.

Now, while it was kind of neat to have an appliance that turned itself on whenever it felt the need, it was still something that I wanted to avoid, for safety and energy reasons, so I solved the problem by keeping it unplugged except when I wanted to use it.

It’s important to note that I didn’t call maintenance. Nor did I do any research to try and determine if this was a common problem with this brand of microwave that could easily be solved. I just wasn’t that concerned. I actually thought it was pretty cool.

The microwave, obviously miffed at my lack of worry, then recently upped the ante. Now, when I plug it in, it automatically starts itself up right away, before I even have a chance to push a button, and as far as I can tell, it will continue to run as long as I keep it plugged in. The only thing that stops it, besides unplugging it, is if I open the door.

I handled this new wrinkle by yawning and altering my strategy. Now I just have whatever I need nuked ready to go when I plug in the microwave. After it automatically starts up, I quickly type in the duration that I want it to cook for, even though the microwave is already semi-running, and hit “Start”, causing the timer to begin its countdown. I then wait for it to hit 0:00. At that point, the microwave beeps and stops heating, but still continues to run. This is my notice to open the door and remove my food, after which I unplug the microwave until I need it next.

No big problem. An easy workaround.

Still, I wonder if I’m being too nonchalant about this? Should I be more worried? I guess the reason for my lack of concern is that besides blowing up, I’m not sure what else the microwave could do would make things any worse, unless, of course, it gets really mad and eats me the next time I plug it in, which would be kind of awesome anyway, so I’m willing to risk it.

I guess I just find the whole thing quite amusing, and if I fixed the problem, I’d no longer get the chuckle out of having a microwave that obviously has other aspirations beyond doing the will of its owner. It’s kind of like Skynet becoming self-aware, except it’s not yet sending evil minions constructed of CGI after me. Heck, maybe it does want to take over the world, and who am I to stand in its way?

Anyway, when it comes down to it, as long as it still cooks my food, I don’t really care.

Plus, it’d be fun if Arnold Schwarzenegger got sent back in time to protect me.