Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Microwave Oven- Daily Writing- June 27

Now that the days are as short as possible and time is as tight as a near empty toothpaste tube, you’ve got to get as much done as you can in the remaining hours before bed – including eating. If you’re as organised as me you make a meal last two days- even three in some cases – you know, a big vat of spaghetti Bolognaise that gets slopped onto three plates – two of which are covered in that non breathable sticky plastic wrap stuff. It isn’t always the easy to shred it from the roll with those angry dented metallic teeth. Sometimes in its angelic transit to the plate it folds over on itself and you spend a minute unpicking it all. Very tricky trying to slide a fingernail in there to separate the statically bonded leaves!

So, you open the fridge the next night and slide your hand in just below the supa-chill section, its seems to breathe a jack frost kiss over the back of your palm as you pull the prized dish out. The trick you learn is to leave the wrapping on, other wise when it’s in the hot house of the microwave certain parts go crunchy and other parts hardly get any heat!. You push that big flappy door release handle and the plate seems to grate on the glass dish inside the oven. The door cracks shut. Because you are now familiar with this particular oven you think nothing of the sequence of beeps and tings that you shuffle through to get that rotisserie plate spinning, but to a foreigner what you’ve just done might be akin to safe cracking. With that firm push of the ’start’ button, the machine launches into a constant hum almost like a distant vacuum cleaner. Perhaps it’s sucking out the cold molecules and then making them dance a frenzy before spitting them back into the food. You don’t want to stand in front of the oven as it cooks….