Don’t worry. Bob is fine now.
I call all inanimate objects Bob, much to the consternation of my friend Astrid’s husband, Bob. All inanimate objects except my laptop table Dave, that is. IKEA named him and to arbitrarily start calling him Bob would be confusing and wrong.
Bob the microwave is perfectly okay now but he gave me quite a scare this morning. My routine is to stumble bleary eyed to the kitchen and heat one and a half cups of water in the microwave for four and a half minutes while I stumble back to the bathroom to wash my face. Me and my fresh face then put a tea bag in the hot water to steep and set the microwave timer for another four and a half minutes while I go back to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When the timer dings, I have perfectly steeped tea ready for its transformation into the perfect cup of morning wake up via the application of milk and sugar.
This morning, however, I inadvertently turned the microwave ON for the second four and half minutes rather than simply setting the timer so Bob cooked a whole bunch of nothing all that time. He finished, beeped as per usual, and waited for me to arrive to pull out the tea bag before saying, “Oh for fuck’s sake,” and clicking all of his little lights off while I stood there feeling helpless and alone. His skin was hot to the touch and he smelled funny.
My first thought was to panic but I assembled my cup of tea instead and went out to the garage to make sure I still had the tiny microwave that came with the house which, in a flash of brilliance, I kept for emergency backup purposes. Bob II was just where I left him.
As I came back inside, Bob woke from his fainting spell. It’s a miracle! Or he remembered Bob II lives in the garage and re-thought his little tantrum. Either way, I apologized and promised not to cook a whole bunch of nothing in future and Bob said he will happily nuke anything I want for as long as his little high voltage transformer holds out.
The moral of this story is that relationships are all about give and take and compromise.
Or maybe its all about leverage. You decide.
