The Bare Necessities

Growing up, I took a lot of things for granted. There'd always be toilet paper, I'd always have a laundry basket, there'd always be (unexpired) milk in the fridge. These are things that are pretty necessary (maybe not the milk) to live and are a pain when you are without them. I kind of groan when toilet paper needs to be purchased, and I was pretty infuriated when someone decided to steal my laundry basket from the laundry room a couple of months ago. While cheap, replacing some sort of laundry transport device is seriously frustrating, especially when you're in the middle of doing your laundry.

My friend Mike grew up as a navy brat. He spent the first couple years of life in Spain and his recollection of Spain was less than glamorous. He doesn't speak about tapas or the beautiful view. He talks about how the TV only had a couple of channels in English and how the highlight of his day was being able to watch Thundercats. (I forget whether he had to watch it in Spanish or not.)

He moved to the States and went to school. His family was financially in good shape, they were a pretty American household. 4 bedrooms, 3 kids, a couple of cars, they were middle class, if not upper middle class. They had cable TV, computers, video games, all the things a teenage boy would want, except one thing: a microwave.

We were probably 13 or 14 years old at the time when Mike told me about how his family was researching various microwaves. He was absolutely giddy about it, like if a kid were to get a new bike, or a new video game. I'm not sure why this family had been sans microwave for so long; they could definitely afford it. I don't recall any stories about how the old one crapped out, or how they had a toaster oven instead, they just didn't have a microwave but now for some reason felt that they needed one. How they were able to manage without one for so long never really popped up in my adolecent brain, but now that I think about it, is pretty impressive.

So on one glorious fateful day, I came over to Mike's house and there was a microwave, and Mike wanted to make me something using said microwave. Sounds weird, I know, but since I knew how much the microwave meant to him, I obliged and told him that I would like some nachos. It was something easy, and something that would be ideally be made in a microwave. So he piled a bunch of chips on a plate and put some cheese (those weird liquidy Velveeta cheese slices, which probably barely qualify as cheese) on top, threw the plate in the microwave and let his new prized possession do the rest.

We sat down to watch some TV and Mike had a look of accomplishment on his face. The microwave had made him into a new man. The microwave beeped to let us know it was done and Mike brought me back my nachos. Unfortunately, the microwave's nacho auto-cooking auto setting didn't know how to handle Velveeta cheese and ended up burning my nachos. I had never encountered burnt nachos before then, so I chose to ridicule Mike. He blamed his failure on his inexperience with microwaves and vowed to do a better job in the future.

I think we both learned a valuable lesson that day. No matter how high tech the device, common sense will always be needed and that should never be taken for granted.