My company just got some shiny new microwaves for a couple of our break areas. They’re gigantic and stainless steel and programmable and very 21st-century. They have I suppose as many bells and whistles as a microwave can conceivably have. How’s this for fancy: when the timer runs out and the beep goes off, the little LCD screen says, “Enjoy your meal.”
Enjoy my meal? My meal, you say? How does this microwave presume to know that I just microwaved a meal? How does it know I didn’t just heat up a snack? Or a beverage? Or how about a plate of bite-size hors d’oeuvres to share with my coworkers—what kind of meal is that, I ask you?
Maybe I microwaved one of those rice-in-a-pouch hot packs that I’m going to use to ease my lumbar pain. I’m not going to be enjoying that meal very much, am I?
Maybe I microwaved a CD to see those weird crack lines develop. Maybe I microwaved a tin can to see if mini lightning bolts would strike. Maybe I’m a disturbed sadist and I microwaved a small live animal. Maybe I microwaved a smaller microwave (these new ones are honestly that big) just to see what would happen.
None of these things are meals.
Maybe I did indeed microwave a plate full of food—roast beef, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli—but I did it only to have the pleasure of throwing that hot food out the window. In what sense, then, is that a meal? Maybe I microwaved a frozen Lean Cuisine thing. That shit doesn’t even count as food. Maybe I turned the microwave on with nothing at all inside it, just because I like the sound it makes.
No matter what, it still tells me to enjoy my meal.
Pff.
Smart-ass microwave.
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