My new love

Breville Ikon Microwave Oven.

When Mark and I first moved in together, he came with a perfectly good microwave. I hated it. With the fiery white hot heat of a thousand suns.

Sure, it microwaved things. It heated things, and then it went beep! I’m ready!

And about a minute later, it beeped again. I’m still ready!

And it went on forever, until you either pressed a button, or opened the door.

I confess, there were rather a few occasions that I fantasised about the death of that irritating (but otherwise perfectly innocent) appliance.

And then it died. Rather abruptly.

Mark insisted on doing the autopsy himself, because it’s fun, because he wants to be the sort of dad that fixes things, and because it’s cheaper. Fast forward a few weeks, a few days of microwave courpse littering the living room floor, toddler accessorising said corpse with various toys, toddler finding screws and small parts to taste, and a few trips to electronics shops for spare fuses, and it was declared officially dead.

Bing Lee has a clearance centre near us, so we decided to go there to look for a replacement. We perused available models, were assured that the incessant beeping was a “feature” that all modern microwaves have, and chose a likely replacement.

At the moment, it comes with a free set of digital scales, “Valued at $99”, and because of Chinese New Year, a free Chinese dinner set.

And when it finishes an allotted task, it beeps. Once.