I grabbed the leftover chili out of the fridge and slid it into the microwave. I set it for 90 seconds and let 'er rip. The microwave made the god-awful noise it always makes, indicating that it's busy exciting water molecules, for about 10 seconds, and then went ominously silent. That's like my 3rd least favorite kind of silent after "deathly" and "everyone-is-expecting-me-to-say-something-smart-now-ly".

Lo, our microwave had died.

With me being the unemployed member of the household, it was my to-do item to get that bad boy replaced. I'm the go-to guy for all appliance-buying, chauffering, appointments, and chores, basically anything that doesn't require skill, knowledge, strength, or savoir faire.

I wasn't actually sure that I wanted to replace the microwave. It seems like the sort of out-dated device that we should have grown out of by the teens of the 21st century. Having a microwave feels like having a laserdisc player or compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Even the name is terrible. I'm sure it was futuristic sounding when they invented it, but now the microwave sounds as modern as stereophonic headphones. Plus, they're goddamn loud! Still a pretty fast way to re-heat chili though.

So, off to Best Buy I went, to acquire a new mic-ro-wave. Knowing that our kitchen counter space is a precious commodity, I carefully measured the old microwave to ensure that I got one that was no bigger. There weren't many models at Best Buy that were the right size, so I grabbed the most powerful one out of those few and brought it home. I don't have a lot of complex requirements for a microwave, so I knew this would be fine.

And I was completely wrong.

Somehow, in spite of being the most powerful microwave of its size, this new one was 200 watts less powerful than our old one. How did microwave technology evolve to get less powerful?

Also, there was no way to microwave something for less than 30 seconds. If you hit '20' on the keypad and then 'Start', it would launch into an ear-rattling 20 minutes of chili pulverizing.

Finally, despite being the same size on the outside as our old microwave, it was substantially smaller on the inside! What? Is this an optical illusion? Did I buy this at the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot? Was it made by Escher? Was it a blivetwave? Baffling!

This microwave was crappier than my old microwave in literally all 4 dimensions, including the time I'd have to wait for something to get unevenly warmed.

I sat back and marveled at how things really do just get worse over time. This is what the old people have been complaining about for generations, and they're right. The old microwaves were better!

Hank took all this in. I believe she used it exactly once before going to Amazon, searching for microwaves, clicking a few search options, and finding the annoyingly perfect model. It arrived 48 hours later.

I'm still go-to guy for chores though!