While I'm waiting for the edits on the manuscript I handed in, I gathered a pile of stuff to throw away. I put my old microwave on the deck ready to take to the recycling center. It might no longer be safe. I was about to carry it to the car when something made me stop. I think it was Jimmy, the man who had given me the oven. He said, the microwave is our link on this earth.
Jimmy is one of a handful of people that I love and who died of AIDS many years ago. I took the oven back into the house and googled "is an old microwave safe?" One answer was this: unplug the oven, put your cellphone inside, close the door and then call the cellphone. If the phone does NOT ring, "waves" are not getting through into the oven and they are not getting out either. Jimmy would have loved that little scenario.
I don't know if this is a valid safety test but it was enough to make me give the oven another chance. I vacuumed the vents and set it up. I put in a cup of water and it heated up and started to boil. I remember once Oprah had a show of the dirtiest housekeepers in America and one of them had a filthy microwave encrusted with spills, etc. The cleaning expert said to boil some water in the chamber and the steam would loosen the dirt and make the microwave easier to clean. It worked.
On a lighter note, Ben Carson, the sleepy, soft voiced neurosurgeon that ran for president, a man I have also come to love for his idiosyncratic behavior, endorsed Donald Trump this morning.
Dr. Carson says there are two Donalds: a very smart, substantive Donald and the other one. I think the phrase, "strange bedfellows" was created for just this situation.
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