The Microwave and Society
One of my many pet peeves (like so many of the others) centers around the kitchen. I believe that the downfall of tradional family life has very little to do with society, changes in family structure, outward time pressures on individuals, or the media. I believe the downfall of the traditional family can be traced to the microwave.
The Evolution of the Microwave
When a homo-sapien was a hunter gatherer, he would often need the help of the extended family or tribe to catch, kill, dress, prepare, and eat his conquests. The communal society was necessary to feed the individual. When he and his tribe evolved to be agricultural managers and farmers, he needed the community to tend the flocks, till and plant, harvest, and preserve their increase. As man became machinists and processes became automated, the family was still needed to purchase food and prepare meals. Then some super genius invented the microwave and the whole world went to hell!
All of the sudden, the individual could heat precooked, ready made meals in one minute or less. The billion dollar microwave burrito and microwave popcorn industries were born. Family structure didn't have a chance. The mom's roll as cook evaporated and she became the chief procurement officer. Meal times, which were long established milestones in our day disappeared. People ate when they were hungry, not when the food was ready.
The "Advantages"?
"A tremendous advance in convenience!" you say? Sure, if you're the one who's hungry. Go ahead, fix yourself that microwave burrito or heat up that plate of left overs. Great for you. But who's going to make my supper?! And if you and the kids eat at 4pm and I don't get home until 6pm, we're not going to eat at the same time, and family dinner goes out the window. I may as well get a burger and a beer at the strip club on the way home. Which of course will make you mad, because I never come home, because there's never anything to eat but cold cereal and burritos, and I just want a good meal, that wasn't made in a factory and heated up in a nuclear device, but you're mad that the burger and beer cost $100, which of course it didn't, but I had to tip the waitress, who wasn't wearing a top, because she had to have some way of buying microwave burritos for her kids, who would be heating them up while she was at work, which was affecting their grades, because she wasn't home to help them with their homework, which is way more than is necessary, but required, because we have to put more emphasis on education, because our economy is faltering, because we're not selling as many microwave burritos, because the banks are faltering, because the bankers made bad loans, while they were eating burgers and staring at the topless waitresses at the strip clubs. And it's all the microwave’s fault!
So in the end. .
One day several years ago I was screaming this argument while in the kitchen (not about being in the strip club - cause I don't go there to eat burgers), I was lathered up and really in an argumentative groove. I was full of spit and vinegar, really going off on the downfall of society and it being the microwave's fault. My wife put a bag of microwave popcorn in and pressed the button. A shower of sparks went off behind the window and the machine stopped. She smacked me across the head and told me to apologize at once. I couldn't bring myself to do it, and we went without a microwave for several years..... until one day when I was making bread and complaining about having to melt butter on the stove. Later that week we bought a new microwave. "It's alright," I justified. "Society is already doomed. At least now I can melt butter faster....."
