Missing the Microwave

We did it: We made it a whole week without a fully functional microwave oven.

I have to say that the week went by faster than I thought it would, but it was still annoying not to have a working version of this modern marvel at our fingertips. While the clock, timer and nightlight still worked, the critical heating element was shot.

The thing died in less time than it used to take to melt a pat of butter. One minute, it was warming up leftover macaroni and cheese, but the next, it was leaving the kids’ hot dogs icy cold.

In a house with two small children who like to eat, this was a problem. And when you have an over-the-stove microwave like we do, you can’t just zip out and replace it; delivery and installation is required.

So the microwave croaked on Saturday and on Sunday, we went to Best Buy in the Hunt Valley Towne Center to find its replacement. That was the easy part. The hard part was going a week without the instant gratification and convenience that the microwave provides when it comes to kid-meal staples. Hot dogs? Forget the easy two-minute zap per pair; you have to break out the grill pan or fire up the Weber out on the deck, which isn’t a whole lot of fun in the late-July heat, humidity and rain. Baked beans? When three minutes in the microwave isn’t an option, you have to break out an old fashioned pan.

As you can see, it’s not that my gourmet cooking was really held back by being a microwaveless family for seven days. It’s that any little mechanical miracle that buys  even a few extra minutes of time is valuable to me because I’d rather spend an extra 10 minutes reading to my kids before they go to bed than to spend that time at the stovetop.