BRINK OF DISASTER OMG

For the last few several days weeks, when I come home, the microwave has been displaying just a lonely dot. It's fairly old, bought with the house, I suppose (the seller left all the appliances for me - bonus!), so I'd guess 10 years. It's just a regular 10-key pad with some presets, but I usually do the timed cook: press cook to cycle through 100%, defrost, 70%, 50%, etc., then enter time and go.

Anyway, if you have cats, you know what that means. Anything small in the house can be blamed on the cats. Naturally, I figured Calle was brushing against the microwave, or even perhaps shocking it just enough to make it do this, even though she takes great pains not to step on anything when she's up there. And it's easy enough to fix. I just press Reset and it's back to normal.

So today, I put pizza in the microwave, go to heat it up, and get this exchange:

Power: 100%period
no no no.
Power: 100%period
no.
Power: 100%period100%period
grr
Power, very lightly: 100%
Power: period.
NO
Power: 100%
Power: def
Power: 70%
Time: period
NO!
Power: 100%
Power: def
Power: 70%
Time: 10
no. 4. not 0. 4.
Power: 100%
Power: def
Power: 70%
Time: 1

4

5

start

back away quickly

sigh of relief.

As you might guess, I do a lot of "cooking" in the microwave. I don't particularly want to get a new one, because that would mean a) dumping this one on somebody and b) venturing into a store to check them out before I order one from Amazon. I suppose I could go to Costco for that too, but no way in hell am I going to Best Buy or hhgregg (home of the worst made-up word ever, hhgdigital) or wherever. no. Not even to comparison-shop.

Maybe I can put it off until the financial crisis settles down a little. Or maybe I should go now while most retailers have the fear of God in them.