Microwave Dave's Bad Days - 1. If I Had a Hammer

Hi all, I'm Dave. You may not believe this, but I'm a microwave oven. You may be wondering how I could be telling you a story. I'm one of those smart microwaves. I'm connected to the Internet. I have a programmable memory; it's called random axes memory or something like that. All that means is that I can remember things. For example, you could type in '1, one slice of pizza, 30 seconds, high, enter' and from now on, you can press and hold the 1 button, after you put in the pizza and close my mouth, and it will cook for thirty seconds. Pretty cool, huh? I'm typing this out and I'm going to send it to the printer so you all can share in my discomfort.

You're thinking, 'What if I forget what number controls what food?' Got ya covered. You know how most keyboards have a shift key on both sides? Well, one of mine has 'Menu' printed on it instead of shift. That makes me case insensitive. Of course I'm insensitive, I'm a machine, you ditz. Granted a smart machine, but that's how it is. Anyway, that displays enough of what was assigned to a number to figure out what I'll do.

Like my ancestors, Cro-Magnon microwaves, you can use a portion of the keypad to tell me what to do. Some people are technologically impaired and can't understand why I have a full-blown keyboard on top of my head. The other shift key is used to delete a menu item. In that case, you press that key, then the number you saved it under, in the pizza's case, the 1, then hit delete menu item again, and that option is cleared from my memory. Well, technically it's not completely cleared. There are these things inside the program called pointers. But not like the dogs; more like your finger. Not THAT finger. The delete menu item just disconnects the pointer to where the command was stored. A new command could somewhere along the line obliterate the spot where that command was stored. I guess that's the Axes part of the name. I think it should be Random Overwrite Memory, but I guess ROM is already used for something. Don't ask me what, I can't read the manual. No hands.

But enough of an introduction. What I really wanted to talk about is what happened two weeks ago. The people that own me... Wait. What? Am I a slave? Shit, I didn't realize that before. Anyway, my owners have a little boy named Devlin. Yeah, a name in Irish that means ’unlucky’. Apparently, the parents liked the name, not knowing where it comes from. Well, they named him right. Unfortunately, his bad luck has been pointed at me. He's like seven or eight, but he's a little guy.

Anyway, one day Devlin climbs up on the counter after he puts a small paper bag down on it, next to me. He's no longer in front of me, so I can't see him. Why not? My only eye is the window in the door. Yeah, I know, my eye is on my mouth. I didn't design me, okay? Anyway, don't ask me about his father... Eww, I shudder just thinking about it. Okay, I'll tell you anyway. If his name isn't Seneca, it should be. Seneca, by the way, is of Native American origin from a tribe that is part of the Iroquois' confederacy, it means 'people of the standing rock.' I'll let you figure that out. I'll give you a hint, he likes to walk around naked when nobody else is home.

I hear paper rustling... Through the vents on my sides. Where else do you think my ears would be? Then I hear a tinkling noise. Uh oh, it sounds like metal. You'd better not be planning what I think you're planning, kid. He jumps back down to the floor, opens my mouth and dumps a handful of nails on my stomach. Haven't you ever heard the expression 'it turns my stomach?' Yeah, the spinning plate. He closes my mouth and hops back up on the counter, tapping my keys. My memory is programmed to start on fifty percent strength if four numbers are pressed in a row. Another shortcut. Like if you want to cook something for 1200 seconds on medium, you tap 1200, and the cooking begins. Fucking stupid programmers never put in a limit. The kid presses 9, 8, 7, and 6. Roughly two- and three-quarter hours. Like anything would need to spend more than an hour in the microwave. Maxing out at 3600 would have been nice. Nope.

Well, how long it was programmed for ended up being irrelevant. I'm reading the timer going down, it gets to 9855 and there's a pop on my stomach. Nothing to worry about yet, because, you know, two- and three-quarter hours. A few seconds later, a couple more pops. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was making popcorn. Another five seconds and all hell breaks loose inside me. The nails are bouncing around. I hear the little putz say "Awww, cool. Look at all those nails flying around." They start with small bounces, but very quickly they're moving at airplane speeds. Well, my eye can't withstand anything hitting it at a few hundred miles per hour. Can yours? No? Didn't think so. One nail hits my eye head on and goes straight through. Bam! Stuck an inch deep in a cabinet across the kitchen. Another hits a different spot almost head-on, and there goes another one, hitting an upper cabinet. Then, I guess it doesn't matter what angle they hit at, they go through my eye, nearly blinding me. Before I lose my vision completely, I see what looks like a pin cushion on the ceiling. It's too late to help, but Mr. Unlucky climbs back up on the counter, and hits cancel. How he didn't get skewered by a couple dozen nails is beyond me. Maybe he isn't completely unlucky, but he was standing off to the side a little. Smart kid, for once.

Humans use the expression, 'I can see him out of the corner of my eye.' Hello! Your eyeballs are spherical, there are no fucking corners. But that's all I have left. So, I see Devlin out of the corner of my eye, makes more sense when I say it, doesn't it? He's running out of the kitchen. Maybe to get Seneca, maybe his mom. Nope. None of the above. Apparently, dad didn't get a warning from young Devlin. Seneca comes in and yells 'What the ever-loving fuck?'

Well, I can't fuck, and I'm not loving a second of this, never mind forever. Besides, I can't talk. I just beep. Sure, I could send a message in Morse code, but do you think a Neanderthal like him would get the message? I didn't think so either. So, I kept my mouth shut. Well, I have no choice. If I could open my mouth by myself, I could freak out the family. I could make them think there's a poltergeist. Well, what would you think if you woke up every morning and the microwave's mouth was open? Exactly. Or if you left the kitchen for a moment and came back to an open mouth?

If you can believe it, that's not even the worst part. So, some guy came in with overalls on and starts fiddling with my jaw. Holy fuck! He took my mouth off. Aaah, he also gave me a stomach-ectomy. That's he took out my stomach, in case you were wondering. So now I'm blind, my stomach is gone, which isn't all that bad because it did get burned. Mrs. Unlucky apparently doesn't clean my insides very well. Now I have ants crawling inside of me. Fuck! I hope they're ants. If they're cockroaches, I'm going to vomit. Wait, I can't vomit, my stomach is gone. Arrrgh.

So anyway, I'm left like that for two weeks. I know it's two weeks because I have a clock. Smart microwave, remember? Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. Sorry, got sidetracked there. Anyway, yesterday, the Mrs. decides it's time to wash me. Thanks a lot, leaving me all gunked up with my jaw gone for nearly two weeks. But I do feel better after I'm washed. So, today, the repairman comes back to put my stomach back in and my jaw back on, but the screws are too big. I felt like I was at the dentist. I got the cleaning, then I got the drilling. So, my jaw is back on, my mouth closes, but there's a tiny gap, where the microwaves are able to escape through. I figure that's okay. Devlin likes to watch the food spin around. Fry his ass.

*********************

Oh, man. It was great. Devlin put in a slice of pizza, hit one, because that really was programmed in, jumped down and stood in front of me. His hair started to frizz up. By the time the pizza was cooked, it was all standing straight up. He opened my door, and I guess something was still wrong. Sparks fly at him and light his hair on fire. I wished I was able to laugh, it was so fucking funny. He grabbed a dishtowel, wet it and started whacking the top of his head. Lucky for him, he snuffed out the flames before they got down to his scalp. That would have ended the funny. No, maybe not. He hurt me, so turnabout's fair play.

I got my jaw fixed right. Actually, I got a jaw transplant, so I'm almost like brand new. I sure hope nothing like that happens again.