Friday, October 10, 2008

Our Possessed Microwave

Our microwave is about ten years old now and for most of that time, it's been possessed. (I'm using that term lightly as I don't really think it has a spirit inside it. LOL)

I'll never forget the day it first showed it's true colors. It was the middle of the night...somewhere in the vicinity of 2am...when my husband and I were shocked out of our slumber by a high-pitched persistent beeping. Upon inspection, we found our microwave going haywire. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...it just kept going at the same rate as if it were telling us it was done cooking something. Only it hadn't been cooking something and it didn't stop after a couple of beeps. Even stranger was the fact that with each beep, the display would flash some new set of odd characters and lines. It wouldn't stop so we unplugged it. It was F-R-E-A-K-Y!

We have since figured what causes our microwave to behave in such an odd way. When our house drops to 64 degrees or below, the microwave throws a fit. Since our house drops below 64 degrees nearly every night between October and March, we have to unplug it before we go to bed each night.

Getting it started again in the morning is another thing altogether. The house hasn't quite warmed all the way up yet, but over the magic number of 64 degrees, and the microwave somehow knows it was cold overnight even though it was unplugged. It immediately starts beeping as soon as it gets power. Because it is warmer than 64 degrees, we can get it to stop beeping by simply pushing a button. However, it takes a bit more finagling to get it to work properly. Usually, this takes pressing a few of the upper row of buttons until we can get it to read 3.50, which I think is one of the reheat settings.

This afternoon at lunchtime I had a harder time than usual getting the microwave to work. Josh was hungry, getting into everything, and crying/throwing a fit. I was desperately trying to get the microwave to work so I could reheat some leftovers for him to eat. That's when the microwave did this...

It was very strange. In fact, it was so strange I just had to take a photo of it and tell the story. I was also on the phone with my credit card company and had to tell her all about it too. She'll be looking for this post later because she wants to see the photo of it. Hi, nice credit card lady!

I was wondering whether the microwave was trying to tell me to stop messing with it and take care of my child or it was complaining about the noise my child was making.

Or, perhaps I accidentally activated the microwave's child lock that I didn't even know it had.













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5 Comments:

Scott said...

You are SO weird.

Anonymous said...

That is so weird. I woud've thrown it out of the door.LOL

Amy said...

Wow, that is so weird. As of last week, my microwave is actually possessed too, and we've had ours for 10 years also. It just doesn't like ME. It will work fine for my husband or son, but most of the time will not turn on for me. Hmmpff.

Ed Miller said...

It's probably a failing keypad or control board.

While I repair these boards and keypads on a regular basis, a 10-year-old counter top model would likely not be economical for repair unless maybe it's a convection model.

This can actually be quite dangerous.

If the oven starts cooking by itself when empty, it can damage or destroy the magnetron and pose a fire hazard.

I would leave it unplugged when it's not in use.

I know that's not convenient, but neither is a house fire.

Good luck and be safe.

William E. Miller, AS-EET
prototech@usa.net
http://www.MicrowaveDisplay.com

Luke Holzmann said...

That's hilarious!

I'm glad I don't have your microwave because I keep the house at 64 degrees in the winter... so we would have no end of beeping. [smile]

~Luke