Gary's Microwave Lesson

This morning, Alette and I decided to make biscuits and gravy! When I got back from my 9:30 class I jumped in the shower and she put this biscuits into our sadly tiny oven. After showering I walked into the kitchen to a confused and upset Lettus. 

' The microwave stopped working...'

she said & before allowing her to tell her story, I questioned if it was even plugged in. She said that she had already tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. My only thought was that maybe the outlet had blown for some reason. I reached back to grab the plug & immediately felt that the side of the microwave was HOT to the touch. I've never really felt a microwave get THAT hot before, at least not on the outside. I asked why it was so hot & she said she didn't know.

' Well, what were you using the microwave for? '

I asked & she told me exactly what happened: She was trying to put the timer on for the biscuits for 7 minutes but accidentally pushed START instead of TIMER and let it run like that for THREE MINUTES. I'm assuming the microwave stopped at this point and would not turn back on. I laughed so hard I was afraid I was making her feel bad. 

When I was about 9 years old... we were still living in North Forest apartments & Gary had flown from Colorado to visit us. I was in the kitchen setting the microwave timer for something and accidentally pushed START. Not even 10 seconds in to my mistake did Gary come rushing in to the kitchen yelling:

' NO NO NO! Turn that off, quick! '

He had never yelled at me before, and I wasn't even sure what I had done wrong. He turned the microwave off & said never turn the microwave ON with nothing inside of it. I am positive that he stood there and gave me the scientific explanation as he always did, but I was probably on the verge of tears and don't remember a thing.

From that day on I always made sure to push TIMER when I meant to, and not START. Unfortunately, Alette has not had the privilege of learning this mistake yet. When I said that doing so was bad, at first she didn't believe me. I couldn't prove it seeing as I 'blacked out' during the scientific explanation! I ran to Google and found out why...

When you run a microwave with nothing inside, there is nothing to absorb the microwaves and they start to build up inside the cooking chamber. With nowhere to go, the magnetron {the source of the microwaves} gets attacked by the waves! ' The magnetron isn't good at handling excessive power that returns to it from the cooking chamber and can be damaged as a result. '

Luckily, our microwave does in fact have ' Thermal Interlocks ' which prevent the microwave from overheating by turning it off. Much like a curling iron. After letting it cool, we plugged it back in and it worked just fine! What a stress that was and Alette was so upset that she had 'broken' the microwave.

The microwave working was the UPSIDE... the DOWNSIDE was that she accidentally burnt the biscuits and that it turns out packet gravy mix isn't the best tasting thing in the world. Oh well, I guess this is college living :b 

Lesson learned!