The other day, I thought to unplug our microwave on the grounds that every time I tried to use it, well it made a loud buzzy sound and the smell of smoke arose. And so, I unplugged it and announced, the microwave was dead. Max and Lucy were actually pretty sad about it. I assured them that we’d get another, but only when time and our budget permitted. Quite frankly, I can live without a microwave. I do most of my cooking on the stove, the grill, or in the oven. But the kids know the easiest reach for cooked food is into the microwave. There’s a less-burn factor there.
Soon, Ricardo and I made our trek to what everyone here knows affectionally as The Mart. It’s Nebraska Furniture Mart and it was started by Berkshire-Hathaway. I know all this now to the point where I suppose I can start calling myself a Nebraskan. Berkshire-Hathaway is the company Warren Buffet started that made him and other shareholders gazillionaires. Last week was the Berkshire-Hathaway annual Shareholders meeting. Think that Black Friday shopping. It’s loon-town and everyone in Omaha knows to stay away from The Mart where all the prices are slashed for the shareholders. I can’t imagine the amount of revenue the Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders’ meeting brings into Omaha. I made the mistake of battling small towner Nebraskans and apparent shareholders at Costco, Trader Joes, and Whole Foods for giant grocery shopping day. Why are these people in my happy place? Shouldn’t they be watching Warren Buffet and Bill Gates play ping pong somewhere? And yes, it was the small towners/shareholders, you can tell by their giant farming trucks. A dead give away was the apparent cowboys’ smoking section outside of Whole Foods.
Anyways, the microwave managed to grace us by going on the fritz a few days after Berkshire-Hathaway cleared out of The Mart. Which is good, because we had a mission – to find a new microwave. As our appliances go out, we’re replacing them with stainless steel. The old ones are bisque color. We’d stay with that color if society would let us. However, bisque is so out of date, they’re fading them out. Like VHS tapes, they’ll soon be out of stock. That leaves us forced to come into atleast the ’90s with our kitchen appliances updating. Sigh.
We now don a bisque refrigerator that’s probably going to hold on strong in spite of our best efforts (ever look over and see your son standing IN the refrigerator? I have. Next time, I’ll not yell but tell him to bounce in it a little bit), a bisque oven and stove, a stainless steel dishwasher, and now a stainless still microwave range.
We make it to The Mart to find helpful and tired-looking employees. Those shareholders must have really worn them down. A nice lady helped us look at microwaves. We honed in on one, and then discovered an odd update – LG microwaves now have convenient buttons for kids: Mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, and hot dogs. Where’s the button for steamed veggies or quinoa? Just wandering. In protest, we kept looking and found one that would not enable our kids to eat junk – leave that to us, LG. Gah.
Our microwave stacks over the oven and stove. That’s right, now it looks weird because one is bisque, the other now shiny stainless steel. But we hadn’t even considered that at the time, until on our way out of The Mart, Ricardo suggests we get a price range idea on a stove/oven. I love window shopping so I was all for it. We found a few we liked and then left.
Ricardo installed the microwave, needing my minimal help, and as I waited for him to need me, I cleaned out my spice rack that stores above the range. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to store spices above my range. I’ve read all about it in my Eats mags. But that’s where it fits, I can reach it, so that’s where it goes. After cleaning it out (I threw out bay leaves that “best used if by July of 2011″) I organized it all on my lazy-susan and went to put it back in the tabooed cabinet above the microwave. That’s when the glass bottle of Garam Masala fell hard off the lazy-susan and on to the ceramic stove top, shattering it. And by it, I mean, it shattered the left side of my stove top.
We have a “Rainy Day” or as I like to call it now, the “Something’s Broke” fund. But there’s something about saving up that money and having it, when something does break, you kinda would rather whip out the duct tape than buy something new. Thanks a lot Dave Ramsey. I think when it happened, I yelled, “Nooooooooooooooooooooo Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” And then everyone came running. Ricardo suggested I did it on purpose in a desperate attempt to match up yet another appliance. But he knows I have bad aim for anything so perfectly landed like this. That, and I was kind of leaned over and held myself up on the stove panting in anger at myself. I came just shy of coming to tears, mentally calculating my dwindling emergency fund, I might have worried him a bit.
Rather than duct tape, which I do not condone to use on a stove top, we took the knobs off the offended and now shattered burners. We’re down to two burners, which at this point isn’t an emergency. People in Haiti get one hour of electricity per day. I think I’m okay with two stovetop burners and let’s not forget that new microwave. Still, I’m currently jockeying to raise the money fast and proactively replenish the “Somethings Broke” savings account before we find the time to stroll through The Mart again. I could sell my blood. Garage sale? No, I’d rather sell my blood. Maybe I’ll sell all the books and raffle off some not-so-gently used furniture. Sigh.
Song of the day: You Learn by Alanis Morissette
I’ll try to up the hilarity level based on our conversations. I’ve been letting her get all settled in, but I think it’s time to let the welcome home stalking begin.
