Super Duper Bright Red Nuker

The old—and I mean old—Panasonic microwave recently started to emit sparking sounds unrelated to the popcorn Ter was making. When the stench of hot wiring wafted from the vicinity around the machine, she killed the process and together we searched for the source. We thought we discovered it in a charred food fragment lodged between the door and the inner sanctum that a) turned to ash when I touched it and b) left behind a puke-inducing reek that matched the hot-wire smell precisely. We cleaned up the machine and returned to business as usual.

A week later, Ter is popping more corn and the sizzling sound erupts again, accompanied by the same burning wire smell. This time, she’s adamant and she’s right. It’s the nuker. It’s ancient, it’s served us well, it’s earned its rest.

We inherited the Panasonic; we didn’t buy it ourselves, so we’ve been out of the market forever, but we were immediately united on one point:

The new one would be red.

So we went shopping. Seeking a screaming scarlet finish makes the job a lot easier than if you’re looking for performance specifics; we nailed one on the second stop. Problem was, there were none in stock except the floor model and the salesdude seemed reluctant to let us take away the demo. So we went home, Ter got online and found five in stock elsewhere—four at one outlet, one at another, and all about halfway out of town. Ter on a mission is an unstoppable force, so I got out of her way and off she went to buy one.

She gets it home. We free it from its Styrofoam molding, peel off the protective shrink wrap, hoist it onto the cook’s cart, and damned if the cord isn’t too short to reach the plug. So we switch out the sockets, plugging the nuker into the stereo socket and the stereo into the former nuker’s socket. I’m dazzled by the smarts in this thing—it heats a cup of water in 70 seconds, thaws frozen food by weight, will bake a potato by instinct, pops perfect corn (Ter’s sole stipulation), and it’s candy apple Corvette red.

I’m still engrossed in the manual and don’t notice what she’s doing until Ter says in a dread-filled voice, “Ruthie, the stereo’s not working …”

My head jerks up. “What?”

“The stereo’s not working in that socket.”

My stomach plummets. My voice croaks, “Don’t tell me …” but my mind is shrieking, We bought a brand new nuker and it’s the freaking power outlet? And what does a bum power outlet mean? How do we fix that? Is the house about to burst into flame? Are we about to die in our beds? Are the smoke alarm working?!

Then Ter checks behind the boombox—which was new a month ago—and almost moans with relief. The plug had come loose when we moved it to switch the microwaves; she pushes it back into place and we have ignition.

I nearly had a heart attack, but it’s all good now.

And the oven looks super cool in our kitchen.