Last Rites for a Small Appliance

Because cooking is hard, Pinterest is a liar, and my microwave just died of natural causes.

I have a confession.

A sad, broken microwave has been sitting on my kitchen floor for at least a month now. I’ve seriously considered making funeral arrangements. There may already be a eulogy typed up and tucked away on my desktop in a folder labeled Upload to Facebook. Every morning, I pass it like a fallen comrade on my way to make tea in its replacement—an equally doomed soul I’ll probably kill in six months. I’m hard on microwaves. It’s a known issue.

I’d like to be one of those crunchy moms—you know, the ones who only feed their kids organic food, make their own baby purées and granola, and wear “earth mama” linen with pride. Truth is, someone once added me to a Facebook group like that just because I’m vegetarian. I had no idea what a crunchy mama even was. The moment I figured it out, it was unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe! Not a shred of guilt was shed.

I’m sure there’s a kombucha-brewing, free-range-egg-loving, apron-wearing whole-foods chef reading this right now, silently judging me through his sprouted almond milk latte. If OpenAI ever creates an in-house chef who’ll look inside my fridge and magically transform forgotten veggies into gourmet meals, I will personally Venmo them my entire grocery budget. No shame. Just send that baby next-day delivery. I’ll be the one at the door, cash in hand, yelling, “TAKE MY MONEY!”

Back before the internet was a fast-twitch muscle and we all had to dial up with a chorus of beeps and static, I once asked my mom if I could microwave a potato—poke holes in it like we did for baking, only quicker. She told me no, because she said it wasn’t possible. Not because it was the truth, but because she didn’t like them that way. She wanted the full 45-minute oven bake. So I believed her. For years. Never questioned it.

Then, in my twenties, I was watching my grandmother’s twelve-year-old adopted daughter for the summer. We were chatting about dinner and I mentioned wanting a fully loaded baked potato—but complained about how long those took to make. She stared at me like I had six heads.

“You know you can just… put it in the microwave, right?”

She blew my entire mind.

I immediately called my mom, outraged. My culinary innocence had been manipulated. She just laughed. Laughed. “Why didn’t you Google it?” she said, completely unbothered.

And that, my friends, is where the story begins.

One day, Pinterest blessed me with a glorious photo of freshly baked bread—golden, buttery, heaven incarnate. I called my best friend. “We have to make this.” We gathered the ingredients, filled a cart, and headed to her kitchen. I was extremely helpful. I floured my hands occasionally and patted the dough like I used to pat my son’s back when I burped him as a baby.

We needed a DIY broiler. The internet said a pan inside another pan with a lid could work. She had a glass one and assured me we’d be fine—if we were very careful. We set the timer, slid the precious loaf inside, and checked on it regularly like doting new parents.

Then came the smell.

When the scent of burning reached tear-inducing intensity, she grabbed the oven mitts and barked something about boiling water. I missed the full instruction. The Pyrex shattered. Loudly. It exploded with such drama, it sprayed glass from her oven all the way into the living room around the corner. It sounded like a crime scene gunshot victim.

My husband loves to tease me about “hiring her as backup” so he gets decent food. She now waves from her porch with a muffin tin in hand whenever we pass—God bless her. She’s been adopted as family now.

The other day, my son looked at me, serious as ever, and asked, “Do all moms cook for their husbands when the husbands are perfectly capable of doing it themselves?”

I laughed. “I’m not all moms. Don’t hold them to my standards.”

Which is exactly why, when the microwave died, I just stood there. Defeated. Nikolai looked up at me and whispered, “Are we going to die of starvation if Daddy doesn’t replace it?”

On our wedding night—yes, we slept inside the church—Rob and I woke up ravenous. We padded barefoot into the church kitchen and peeked inside the fridge.

Milk.
Eggs.
Bread.

“That’s it. We’re doomed,” I said, already grieving.

Rob laughed and made French toast. I was floored. French toast was something I believed only IHOP was licensed to make. He thought I was kidding—until the nervous laughter gave me away. He married a woman who could not cook. Not even toast. And I’ve defiantly burned water more than once.

But I learned. Eventually.

I still hate cooking, and Rob still asks if I’m making dinner every time he hears the smoke detector. But my kid will brag that I make better food than his dad. I’ve got a mean vinaigrette game, killer soups, heavenly desserts, and I can build a sandwich like an artist. As long as it takes under thirty minutes? I’m golden.

So no, I’m not the crunchy mom. I’m the tofu-nugget, splash-pad, microwave-eulogizing mama. I love salads because they’re refreshingly easy and taste delicious—not because someone told me they’re holy. And when I bring home a new microwave, I bless it with more hope than Pope Francis at Easter Mass.

Lord, give me the strength to endure when Nikolai comes running into the room to tell me he accidentally started a small fire inside it.

May this one outlive its ancestor regardless.
May its spirit be strong.
And may it heat my tea until kingdom come.

Amen.