I remember our first microwave. My Dad gave my mother a modern microwave
cooker for Christmas one year. It was
too big to fit between the countertop and bottom of the kitchen cabinets, so it
ended up in the utility room on top of the dryer. Not only was it big and heavy, but when we
used it to warm up our Patio burritos, it made a rather loud death-ray buzzing
sound with undertones of tiny aluminum fan.
We were all taught to respect this awesome beast of modern
cooking convenience. We were ever so
careful not to put anything metallic in it.
If something metal was put in the microwave, it would cause lightening
and then the microwave would blow up and we would all be exposed to deadly
microwaves which would cook us from the inside out. This
was such a thoroughly imbued warning that it was apparently still a part of the
collective psyche years later when I was in college.
One day of my freshman year, I was in the Student Center preparing
to warm my foil-wrapped lunch in the microwave provided for student use. I had gotten a paper plate from the kitchen
and was about to unwrap my lunch and place it on the plate when the Dean of the
English Department rushed over and shouted, “DON’T PUT THAT THING IN THERE! WE’LL
ALL DIE!”
