the microwave door

    I have this recurring nightmare that starts with me sleeping in my bed (WooOOoo foreshadowing). For some unknown reason I sit up in my bed and look around the pitch-black room blindly. Throwing off my covers and putting on some clothes (even in dreams I refuse to walk naked around my house but that's another story) and stumble over the clothing and trash covering my floor towards the door. Like some unearthly being I float down the hall, down the stairs, down another hall, and well, yes, down another hall to the kitchen where the first splotch of color enters the dream. The room is shadowed and dark, kitchen chairs and condiments rising out from the walls in abstract shapes and there in the middle of the kitchen is a golden glow; hazy, as if I was looking through tears. That is when I begin to scream. It is not just any monster that basks in that evil glow in the middle of my happy kitchen - it is an inner demon that haunts me mercilessly when I am both asleep AND awake. It is the microwave door and it is sitting open.

    I can see you moving to click back and I can hear you muttering, "what rubbish" Well, let me tell you - it is NOT rubbish! This is a very real fear of mine- a fear that is kept alive daily by the fact that every time I turn my back someone uses the blasted appliance and leaves its door gaping. I see it sort of like this: I see a handsome man - I eye him, being the gorgeously single woman that I am, casually check him out and he notices this. Sauntering over to where I'm standing he opens his mouth to smile what I'm sure will be a devastatingly handsome grin,

O n l y t o m y h o r r o r

when he opens his mouth he has no teeth! No teeth at all, just gaping holes in his mouth, voids filled with thick, red, oozing (getting this mentally pictured yet) blood that drips out of his mouth staining his strong manly (okay so maybe this guy isn't really worth my time) chin coppery-flavored red. That is exactly what I speak of when I speak of the microwave door. What should be an attractive kitchen appliance is in all truth a nightmare because when it does open its mouth (or er door) it should always have teeth (or in it's case food there). If there is no food there, there are no teeth there and the light just oozes out of its exposed insides.

    I'm relatively sure I'm not addressing this in the correct manner, I'm trying to (and failing at) being witty. This would have to be my number one pet peeve: the door to microwave being left slightly ajar. I have gone into screaming fits over this (no lie!) IT simply blows my fucking mind that a person cannot expend the smallest amount of effort and push the door closed in a secure fashion instead of 1) leaving it gaping or 2) leaving it just a smidgen of a fraction of an inch open - just enough so that the light stays on. That light has no right to be on. That light is there to entice my mouth by basking whatever food I'm desperate enough to eat in its homely artificial glow. It is not there to show the naked food-stained glass revolving disk in the center of an equally disgusting, food-splattered rectangular room. I will not stand for it! I mean, leaving cupboards sitting open pisses me off too but never to the same extent that the microwave door bit does. I'll be sitting eating my dinner pretty as a pig and then into my frame of vision will loom the microwave. Sound slows down around me - everything else fades black except that tiny box in my kitchen wall and its movie-popcorn yellow light. I say in a hushed voice to the table at large, who here left the microwave door open? Who was the last to use it?! They all deny it, damn them. So I rise, an intimidating force as I throw my fork to my plate and rush across the room. Flying up I karate kick the door (being 5 feet off the ground) closed. And yes, I actually did that once. I usually just slam it closed and stalk back to the table a bundle of non-cuddly anger.

    Believe it or not - I'm not yet finished. We have two microwaves, one that is in the wall that came with the house, and our old countertop microwave that sits on the wet- bar, which is next to the kitchen. I got home late one night to find myself locked out. Being the resourceful wench that I am - broke into my house by going into the garage and picking the lock to the house with my father's tools. Going into the kitchen to get myself a drink after my strenuous endeavor I see, and I noted in a state of ecstasy to myself - Oh my god! They closed the microwave door! I'm so proud! I was humming in a state of euphoria. Then, as I turn to hang-up my coat I freeze, like a Roz in a microwave light for there- ten more feet away, hidden partially by some knick-knack shelves covered by plaster pink pigs, sat the second rarely, if ever used, microwave. It was sitting there, the door and its closing fixture further apart than a whore's legs. I gave a cry (it woke the baby up but dammit I was upset!) and ran to the microwave, spilling my freshly poured drink all over my shoes. I clawed the door violently as I slashed my hand across the air in front of me, fortunately making contact with the microwave door and sending it to a slamming close.

    I tell myself to relax, I tell myself to chill out and it just refused to take hold on me. That microwave door has such power over me that just by seeing it open I can ruin a good day. So, in conclusion (I can hear you thanking god, providing you made it this far) I BESEECH you to please close that DAMN microwave door. Help my cause. HELP ME! Just take that time and give that door an extra friendly nudge. It is meant to be closed just as hot guys are meant to have teeth. Without the teeth - they just aren't worth it. So please, oh please (and picture me on my knees begging because I've tried that approach as well in attempts to convince my family to close the door) shut the microwave when you are finished using it.

Thank you,

      Rozalyn