Damn Microwaves

My friend Mark told me a story to illustrate what life was like for him growing up. At his house, in the early 90’s, his parents had a microwave. Somehow his parents got the idea that it would hurt their valuable microwave if they let it run without anything inside of it. This is untrue, but many people believed it at the time. But Mark’s parents went further. To solve the problem of the microwave possibly running without any food inside of it, they left a bowl of water in the microwave every time it wasn’t running. They did this just in case the microwave either started spontaneously or someone decided to set the microwave and hit the start button but forgot to put the food in. The strangest and most illogical part of this huge mess of illogical though is that my friend Mark would get in trouble not for starting the microwave with nothing in it, but rather for forgetting to put the bowl with water back in the microwave.

This is a perfect example of true legalism. People protect themselves from problems and sin by adding new rules. Then they punish people for breaking their rules, even if they never cause the original problem. It is if they forgot what rule was added and what was there for a reason.

I would have thought Mark’s experience with microwaves was a singular one, but when he told his story, another friend told a story of microwave abuse. The friend’s parents weren’t as concerned about running the microwave with nothing in it, they were concerned with the buttons on the face of the microwave. Somehow they got it in their minds that by pushing the buttons too often the microwave would quit working. So, to solve this problem, they set the microwave to 99 minutes and 99 seconds, which was the most they could put on their microwave. Then when someone wanted to cook something, say for 45 seconds, they wouldn’t have to push the buttons, all they had to do was push the start button and stop the microwave at 99 minutes and 54 seconds. This continued, minute by minute, so that no one would have to push the number buttons that may or may not go out with repeated use. The kids said it was so confusing to try to subtract two and a half minutes from 47:13 that their family constantly burned their food all the time.

Why is it so easy for us to do this? Parents focus so strongly on the extra rules that their children never remember what they should originally avoid. If we asked these two sets of parents what they were trying to do, they would say they were trying to be good stewards, or something similarly spiritual. Do you think Mark or my other friend learned to be good stewards, to not be careless and wasteful from their experiences from their microwaves? Of course not. They learned of disapproval and judgment. They learned to be confused about the true value of possessions, and the need to repress. Luckily Wal-Mart has driven down the price of microwaves so much that they have become a dispensable item. Otherwise, another generation of children might be raised with such graceless microwave logic.