Success!

It didn't take me long to blow up something in the kitchen after my fiancé left for California for the weekend.  Really.  Like, 10 minutes?  Maybe?

I woke up at 4:30am to see her off to the airport.  After she left, I figured I'd make something in the oven and go to bed after it was cooked so it would be nice and cool upon waking.

The instructions were simple: 425° for 15 minutes, 325° for 45 minutes and then 10-minute increments if it's still not baked all the way through.  So I used the timer on the microwave to cook the first 15 minutes, used the timer on the microwave to cook for the next 45, and then accidentally used the "Cook" feature of the microwave for an additional 10.

The microwave did not like this.  Not one bit.

For awhile there, about 7 minutes, it was a real sport.  It woefully cooked nothing but it's own insides, whirring along in such a manner so as not to arouse any suspicion from me in the other room.  But then, I guess it had decided it had enough of this tomfoolery.  "Screw this guy!  I've been heating up delicious food for him day in and day out for a number of years, and THIS is how he decides to repay me?  By nuking my own GUTS?!  Well.  Not one more second.  I'm going on STRIKE!"

So when I realized I hadn't heard the beep for some time, I went in and noticed it had refused to work.  No clock, no light, nothing.  At first, I was thought I'd blown a fuse, but eveything else plugged into that power strip worked fine.

So that's the setting of my adventure:

Can you buy a microwave at RadioShack?  No.  CVS?  No.  Rite-Aid?  Not even a little.  While it's not something you often think about, there aren't THAT many places one CAN buy a new microwave.  I learned this brutal truth at about 6:30am that morning.

Luckily, Google came through for me and reminded me that, if I took a short bus trip down Steinway, I could stop at P.C. Richards and get one.  This is what I decided to do.  I hadn't wanted to leave the house the entire weekend, but I had plans to make an entire crockpot full of 3-Meat Chili to last me through the fiancé-less weekend, and thawing two of the three meats rendered a microwave a necessity.

Not being too accustomed to the NYC bus system, I checked the schedule of the Q101 that runs down Steinway.  The following is a minute-by-minute play-by-play of what happened after I put on some jeans and a shirt (and watched WALL-E to kill time before P.C. Richards opened):

Bus scheduled to come at approx. 10:07am.  I leave the apartment at 10am sharp.

Bus arrives on the corner of Steinway and 23rd Ave right on time.

I exit in front of P.C. Richards at 10:17am.

I pick out a slightly different microwave than the one we've been using for years, and let the salesman talk to me about the problems with the media and how ATMs from different banks charge you a fee if you're not a member of that particular bank.  I think he may have been mildly retarded.

Either the 10:18 was late, or the 10:48 early, because I walked out of the store with a 30-lb microwave in my hands and sprinted a half-block to catch the bus that was coming.

(On the bus ride back, there was an automated voice on the system that wasn't there on the earlier trip.  It advised, "Please use the rear door to exit."  There was a guy who got off earlier than me who had yelled, "Back door!" at his stop, so I assumed the rear door did not automatically open, but one had to request it.  Maybe to save heat?  I don't know.  When I got to my stop, I heeded the advice of robot-lady on the loud speaker and stood by the back door.  Which didn't open.  So I did what the guy before me did.  "Back door!" I yelled.  The driver gor snarky and was like, "You have to push it!"  To which I replied, "I have a big box!  A little help, Bro?"  He opened the door and was yelling something at me as I exited.  I assume he thought when I yelled "Back Door" he thought I was claiming dibs on his own personal *ahem!* 'rear exit', and was less-than-enthusiastic about the possibility.  I didn't mind, though, because...)

At 10:45 I was home and had a new microwave hooked up.

45 minutes for the entire trek.  This is an EPIC win. 

So while I don't yet have any pointers outlined for the MTA bus system, I would like to thank them for being accurate enough that I could make a delicious batch of 3-Meat Chili for the weekend and therefore my fiancé was able to focus her disgust on that as opposed to the daunting task of having to learn a slightly-different microwave.