I returned to work on Monday and was confronted with a large grey-brown box.

Apparently The Colleague got wind of someone throwing it away and decided it would be a good coming-back-to-work present for me.

Today, after sitting and looking at it for 2 and a half days, I got The Other Guy to drive it home and carry it up my stairs for me. Very decent of him considering it took up a good share of his lunch break.

The box is not a cardboard box. Nor is it a plastic box. It is a metal box with a door. The door is mostly seethrough.

Inside the box is a square of thick glass. The glass (and the rest of the inside of the box) is covered in a thick, speckled coating of fat and other unapetisingness.

The outside of the box is less fatty and more dusty and has buttons and a dial, a small plastic-window-which-may-or-may-not-be-a-light and a tail. The tail has 2 prongs.

However. I don’t think the tail belongs to an evil spirit. I think it belongs to my new [old] microwave.

Yup. That’s right, I am the [proud] owner of a very old microwave. The sort without a spinning plate.

I have no idea if it works. I know it’s filthy though.

It has instructions on the door, forbidding it’s use when empty.

There’s no way I’m cooking anything in it before washing it.

And that’s the reason I don’t know if it works.

I really ought to go and clean it.

I could then proceed to find out if it works, and eat the result.

I have survived without a microwave for 2 years. I really missed having one when I moved here, then gradually got used to reheating things on the hob (instead of heating the whole oven). Lasagne soup is one of my favourites ;). I’m not sure I NEED a microwave, but I was thinking the other day about how it would be easier to defrost and reheat stuff in a microwave than in the fridge and on the hob. I like the idea of cooking properly, but I don’t often have the energy to do anything about it. When I do, I make more than I need and then freeze the surplus to be eaten at a later date. In theory this is also an idea I like. In practice, my freezer is gradually filling up with home made ready meals that no-one eats. When I come home at 11 pm (not always, but often) I have about as much interest in defrosting something as I do in cooking from scratch. I eat a lot of muesli. Yes, I could probably organise myself better and take it out of the freezer in the morning before work. But seriously? Who’s that organised? Even if there really are people like that, I’m not one of them… yet. In the meantime, I have a microwave 🙂