Out of the Blue, Into the Black

In the past month, two light bulbs have burnt out in my bathroom. First it was one of the 24" florescents along side the mirror, then the overhead bulb kicked it. On New Year's day, when the sun set at around 2pm, I flicked on the light switch in the kitchen. Two of the three bulbs in my "chandelier" didn't respond. They were dead. Later in the afternoon, I tried to turn on the light in my bedroom, only to hear the all too familiar sound of a light bulb zapping out. At this point, the short list of working lights included the floor lamp in the living room, the other florescent in the bathroom, one overhead bulb in the kitchen, and the little guy in the fridge. Everywhere I turned, it seemed the lights were going out. So I did the next logical thing. I made a bowl of Campbell's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo in relative darkness.

When it comes to heating up a can of soup, I can get impatient. I don't use the stove, I prefer nuking that shit. The microwave I have is quite powerful. It's a 1000 watts of nut-sterilizing power. The only problem with it is that the turntable inside doesn't work. I don't think it's worked for close to ten years. Which means I've got to turn the soup bowl halfway through the cook time in order for it to heat evenly. It didn't fully occur to me at the time, but when I moved the bowl it wasn't very warm. I anticipated it being hot and gave it a quick touch. When it turned out not to be hot, I attributed it to the calluses on my fingers. They're thick, and I usually feel next to nothing. It's like having a layer of scotch tape over them, my own little pot holders.

A bowl of soup usually cooks in about two minutes and forty-five seconds. I grabbed the bowl with actual pot holders, gave the soup a stir, and dug in. The Gumbo was lukewarm, at best. I didn't think anything of it, just popped the bowl back in the microwave for another minute. When the timer beeped, I grabbed the bowl and did the temp test--a finger poke in the middle of the bowl, expecting to get burned. Again, it wasn't hot at all. I decided, inadvertently, to put my intelligence to the test by repeating this process for the next five minutes, while standing directly in front of the microwave. It wasn't until I crouched down and watched the bowl in the microwave that I noticed there wasn't any steam curling from the surface of the soup. That's when it finally hit me: the microwave's broke. Sharp as a spoon.

I don't know if I've ever gone without a microwave before. This is strange and bizarre territory. I'm thinking about letting it rest for a few days and firing it up again. Maybe it just got a little stressed. Works as a raised shelf/timer combo, I guess. But I think it still has some power. Standing in front of the thing for as long as I did caused some minor pain in my testicles--at least, that's what I'm attributing the source of the pain to. If they learn how to open doors on their own, I'll try to warn people before it's too late. But I won't make any promises, since I can barely see in here.