Conviction or convection?

I can do 'big' and 'little', or 'small' and 'large' and (I suspect, if pressed) yin and yang (why does only one of them rate a 'g' by the way?). I have trouble with 'moderate' or 'medium'. I don't handle 'microns', 'dashes', 'tablespoons' or 'watts' very well either.

I almost blew up our kitchen because we seem to have a micro-wave oven that, I'm guessing here, produces a whole bunch more watts than visible to the naked eye. Like Charles Atlas or Superman. All I know about watts and microwaves is they have nothing to do with Los Angeles or a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma (guess who got a subscription to US News and World Report for his birthday, huh? Nope; my neighbor did. I just mooch his copy and wonder why he doesn't get Maxim instead. Much better articles), which is more than I knew yesterday. Are you through playing with the hyperlink for Maxim? How come you didn't do that right click stuff ten days ago when I shared the Buckminster Fuller link? Mouse was broken? Yeah, right.

Anyway, I was having one of those microwave sort-of-a-meal things, this one from the folks who sell a lot canned vegetables and tropical fruits (not in the same jar, at least I hope not) that advertises on the front that it contains 'two servings of vegetables' among other stuff. And the package explains to cut a slit in the top and put it in a microwave on high for ninety seconds and then has the asterisk from Hades ('since microwave ovens vary, cook time is approximate'). Those pineapple eatin', vegetable knoshing hosers! Our microwave obviously is possessed by Sybil, as it seems to like certain foods (I'm not sure popcorn is a food unless you're starving to death in a multiplex) and hates others, like this 'two servings of vegetables' near-meal I'm failing to successfully prepare.

First, the microwave almost set the whole container on fire, inside the microwave. My wife is on the far end of the house and hears the smoke alarm go off in the kitchen and asks in a somewhat strained voice (moving towards me as inexorably as that PLA tank made a beeline for that student carrying those bags), concern audible but not (yet) overwhelming, 'is everything okay?' Well, not everything, honey. There's trouble in the Suez and it's starting to look like the AL East race is already over for my team as we head to mid-August and we sure could use a break on that car repair. Just because I use the smoke alarm as a timer shouldn't mean I don't have everything under control, but somehow this part of the discussion gets lost in the ozone.

And she gets to the kitchen just as as I'm trying to non-chalantly eat a spoonful of grapefruit from one of those plastic cups (that needs NO microwaving, if anyone asks) and she shrieks in unhappy surprise over what's going on on the turntable in the microwave. I end up spilling some of the grapefruit juice on my grey tie, the one she just got back from the cleaners because she couldn't get the stains out any other way. And now it's my fault there's more stains on the tie?!? Stupid vegetables, both servings. Maybe we actually live in the Rockies or one of those higher elevation places? Or perhaps the cooking temps are actually in Kelvin?
-bill kenny