I have personally killed four microwaves in just the last few years, two of which were not even mine. And by “killed” I mean “was the last person to push buttons on it or perhaps stand in the general vicinity when it inexplicably up and died”. Our last microwave was heating up dinner, which we’ll pretend was a plate of vegetables and not leftover pizza, when it made a really loud non-microwavish noise whilst running. There was also a bright spark of light from the bottom of the microwave, so I stopped using it since I love vegetables but hate kitchen fires.
Does something seem wrong to anyone else? No?
To reconcile my sad but not unfamiliar lack of microwave, I went to a home/building store and laughed at the cheapest microwave being $320. Granted, it was a wall-mounted over the stove model and the space over my stove has a distinct lack of functioning microwave, but our last $300 over the range microwave didn’t even last 5 years. So, no thanks. On the way out, they had an over the range microwave for $77! Because it was slow moving product, or possibly a floor model! You better believe I bought that sucker.
And after two or three hours and extensive wrestling by the Hubbles, it didn’t work. You simply cannot properly mount the damn thing to my cabinets, and even getting the wall portion on required extra work and hassle. It was also missing some screws, which we had in the garage, but it was sort of like insult to injury at this point. It is now sitting on my kitchen floor mocking my frugal ways, waiting to be returned (within 30 days, but preferably not on a day we are expecting over a foot of snow).
My next attempt was at a big box store where I found a Hamilton Beach countertop microwave. I like my HB toaster, and my HB food processor that my husband broke two months after breaking my old food processor, so this was a good sign. Except there was no sign, literally. Perfect color, good size, decent wattage, options, no price, no box, no more like it, and no customer service. They also had an HB microwave that was okay in all respects, and had a box and price and all, but it wasn’t quite as nice. Now, some of you will have a horrible time after buying a cheap, floor model microwave and then you won’t do the exact same thing four days later. You people are rational human beings and I bet your socks even match. Congratulations! You are not me.
So I stood around waiting while the kids cried for PICK UUUUUPPP! and Chappy stepped on the bananas we hadn’t paid for yet. I was pretty fed up by the time someone got an assistant manager over to help me, but she was very helpful and hooked me up. She dubbed our mystery microwave whatever the cheapest one available was, and gave me an extra 10% off that. So I got what was probably a $75 microwave for $45. Guess what? It worked! I know, I’m kind of shocked too. But sometimes a persistent inability to learn a valuable lesson pays off with a $45 microwave that matches the rest of my appliances.
