Angels in the Microwave

I think an angel lives in my microwave. We went to Veterans Memorial Pool this afternoon with a friend from our ward, Lisa Jensen. Spencer was complaining that we were having tortellini salad for dinner when he'd rather me buy nachos at the pool instead (big surprise!). I said "No" (another big surprise!) and the moaning continued. Lisa, the saint, told Spencer that she had an opened can of nacho cheese in her freezer and if he was willing to walk over to get it, he could have it. (Guess who was the cooler adult this afternoon. Big hint, it wasn't me!) As soon as we got home, we changed clothes and I dashed out the door with Ryan and Joseph to soccer practice. Spencer happily walked over to Lisa's.

Since I'd played at the pool all afternoon, I hadn't made dinner. I called Greg on his way home from work and he stopped at practice to wait for the boys while I went home to get dinner ready. I walked in the door to a very odd smell. Steven walked by and said something to the effect of, "Don't breath too deeply. The handle really smells after it comes out of the microwave." That made no sense to me whatsoever. The brain took awhile to process all the incoming details, but it finally clicked that Spencer was dipping chips into a sauce pan full of nacho cheese that was sitting on a hot pad on the counter. He also mentioned something about the microwave making the handle smell funny. Then it clicked, they'd heated the cheese in the metal sauce pan in the microwave. Ahhh! In their defense, they had asked Erica how to heat it and she had told them to take it out of the plastic, meaning the plastic bag it was sealed in. They took it to mean not to use anything plastic at all. A short lesson about what is and is not acceptable in the microwave quickly ensued. The last time we had metal in the microwave we got a really cool fireworks show and then a new microwave.

Spencer said all he noticed was a pop, but he thought it was because some of the cheese had popped out of the pan and onto the handle. Not daring to hope too much, I heated a glass of water in the microwave and it came to a boil, just like it should. Whew! I also heated corn in it for dinner and all seemed well. So, I don't know why the microwave didn't blow up or catch on fire, but I'm most grateful that it didn't. This one's under warranty still. Maybe that's the reason for the happy ending. Wait until day 366 of a 1 year warranty and you can bet the kitchen would have burned down, unless, of course, there really is an angel in there. I like that thought better.