Alarm Clock

We have two microwaves in the kitchen. There was a built-in unit over the oven when we moved in, but we don't like it. It's small, our dinner plates are a bit oversized, and they don't fit in it. So we also have a stand alone microwave on the counter. We got that one in Flagstaff and it is the best microwave ever, which it had better be, because we had to return something like 3 or 4 different defective units to the Sears at the Flag mall before we finally got this one. That was a surreal week, I weighed something like 96 pounds at the time and had to hobble on my cane through packs of military recruiters trolling the food court in order to conduct microwave transaction after microwave transaction. Most of it is a blur.

Anyway, there was really no point in telling you that since you probably do not care about the history of the microwave. This microwave does have some awesome features, though, and the most useful set of preprogrammed options I've ever encountered. When it dies, we will both be sad.

There is also something about the blue LED it uses that makes it much easier to see than a lot of digital displays, so I prefer to look at it whenever I need to check the time in the kitchen, and E prefers to use its kitchen timer feature over those available on other appliances. The single feature on this microwave that isn't well suited to our use is that when the timer expires, it doesn't re-set back to the clock display. E's scattered attention means she can't cook as much as an egg without using the kitchen timer, and it also means that she forgets to manually re-set the LED back to the clock display pretty much every day.

And because I am not particularly well grounded in my spacetime coordinates in any case as well as presently stuck in a sleep cycle where I wake up foggy at around 4am every single day, each and every morning I lumber into the dark kitchen half-asleep glancing about checking for the time and I see the microwave clock blinking END END END, and just for a second but every goddamned morning, I experience this instant of full-throttle panic that the end of all of time is happening right now. I almost don't even need the coffee after that.

Don't forget, daylight savings starts tonight.