Great, Now My Alarm Clock is Jealous.

As previously noted, SuperSkater moved to a new apartment, a lovely split level apartment with well designed shared-space, nice roommates and a microwave. But what does that mean for Cupcake? It means that Skater no longer needs her old microwave, so she lent it to me until such time as she may again need it. So Friday night, my microwave and I took a cab home (he tried to get fresh in the backseat, it was a bit awkward).

So, now I have a microwave. The first order of business was finding a place for it. The ideal place for a Microwave is in the kitchen and near a power outlet, and such a spot was not immediately discernable in my humble pad. So I had to do some creative rearranging. Now my coffee maker sits on top of my microwave putting it at such a great height that I can no longer see into the top of it. Fortunately, I make coffee vocationally five days a week so by Saturday morning, I just coast on auto-pilot. Busteloriffic!

The thing is, I don't really know what to do with a microwave anymore. I've been without one for so long I've perfected sans-microwave living. I have the hot air popper for my popcorn; frozen foods are heated up in the oven. I've got cooking for one person down to a science, there are rarely any leftovers. I keep a stick of butter softening on my counter if I want to bake and if I need it sooner, I preheat the over and place the butter on my range until it starts to melt.

Finally, I had the power to irradiate with abandon and I had nothing to nuke! So I bought some vegetables in a special pouch that lets you steam them in the microwave and made them with some pasta. Fast and easy, just as I heard tell. Of course, some of you are going to dismiss this story as a lie out of hand because it involves vegetables, but I swear I got the kind that is mostly corn, carrots and peas (and I threw the green beans away).

Now that I have reached a level of technical convenience that could best be described as "late 20th Century" I fear my other appliances are going into revolt. This morning I did one of those emergency wake-ups where you go from REM in one instant to heart-pounding adrenaline rush in the next. I was convinced that I was late for work, although my alarm clock had not gone off. I looked at the clock It read "12:25am". I looked around, morning had broken through my window. I was confused. It must be 12:25am because the clock is never wrong, but it looked like 7:00am. Groggily, I grabbed my cell phone and saw the time there: 6:30am. Cleary, my alarm clock had gone off its rocker.

Now, this is only noteable because it is one of those clocks that automatically sets itself to the right time because it receives radio signal updates every couple of minutes from the Atomic Clock (sounds impressive, no?). The clock is always right. You can bring it across time zones and it automatically resets itself- daylight savings time is never a problem. The clock is always right, get it? Except for this morning. Essentially, what I am saying is that I beleive the microwave upset the fragile truce that I had with my small appliances. Honestly, I'm terrified to turn on my hot air popcorn popper tonight, but damn, popcorn sounds good right now. If no one hears from me tomorrow, it probably means that the toaster and the paper shredder ganged up on me.