The Microwave Is Done. Why Is It Still Supervising Me?
The food is hot. The timer has stopped. Apparently, the microwave’s remaining job is to make sure nobody in the house knows peace.
A microwave beeps when the food is ready. Fair enough. That’s useful information.
Then, on the models apparently designed by a collections department, it beeps again because you haven’t opened the door.
I understand the first beep. What I object to is the follow-up campaign.
The food isn’t going anywhere. It’s in a box. The box is on the counter. We have the situation reasonably well contained.
But the microwave has finished its part of dinner, and now it needs everyone to acknowledge that achievement.
Beep.
Yes. Terrific work. You rotated a potato.
There are perfectly good reasons someone might not immediately sprint toward a finished microwave. They could be draining pasta, clearing a space on the table, or waiting for the bowl to cool below the temperature of a brake rotor.
That last one seems especially reasonable. Microwave heating can produce the fascinating combination of lukewarm leftovers and a dish you need blacksmith’s equipment to handle.
Perhaps a brief pause is warranted.
The microwave disagrees.
What bothers me is the promotion. A kitchen appliance has quietly moved from doing a task to supervising my response to it. Heating the soup was the assignment. Managing my priorities was not.
I don’t need a performance review from something with a popcorn button.
And yes, some microwaves let you turn the sound off. Wonderful. Now make that option as obvious as the button for a baked potato.
Instead, depending on the model, silencing the thing can involve consulting the manual and learning a button combination that feels more appropriate for unlocking a secret character in a video game.
Somewhere, there’s a perfectly sensible person standing in a kitchen reading appliance documentation because they’d like a quieter burrito.
That’s an unnecessary assignment.
I’m not demanding a silent kitchen. A smoke alarm should absolutely interrupt dinner. It has news. A microwave has a bowl of peas and an inflated sense of urgency.
Give me one completion beep. Give me a clearly labeled sound setting. Then trust that the adult who figured out how to put food inside the machine can eventually figure out how to take it out.
If the soup gets cold, I accept the consequences.
Luckily, there’s an appliance for that. If it’s finished talking.
The conversation
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