Perhaps one of the greatest inventions of the modern era is the microwave oven. When they hit the scene in 1967, I seriously don’t remember ever actually seeing one. It was kind of like that thing on TV where they would introduce a show like “The FBI IN COLOR!” I never knew or understood what the hell “IN COLOR” meant. Then, one day at school, one of my smart-ass rich friends explained it to me. He said, “You’re such a dumb ass, Masters. You can only see something “in color” if you have a “color” TV. Well, do you?” “Do I what?” “Jesus H. Christ, do I need to draw a picture for you? Do you have a color TV?” “OH, that! No. My dad is too cheap. You know that. He’s so cheap he squeaks. Our TV is black and white.” So, yeah. No color TV and not a hint of a microwave oven. Of course, most families couldn’t even afford them until the late 1970s, but that didn’t stop the Army from investing in a few for day-rooms. After all, it was the post-Vietnam-era all-volunteer Army, and they wanted to ensure that morale among the troops stayed high. That was why we had free beer in the mess hall, and each soldier was authorized two beers during lunch. And we had very inexpensive beer in the dayroom. I’ve said it before, the only place I could find beer cheaper was at Nichol’s Alley in Columbus, Georgia. Well, when the powers that be put the microwave oven in the dayroom, we could have late-night warm snacks like left-over pizza, jiffy-pop popcorn, and some of PVT Garcia’s homemade Chile. Garcia was a cook in the mess hall. My first roommate at Fort Benning was this dude from Puerto Rico, but he left for home two weeks after I got to Fort Benning. Then Garcia moved in with me for a while. Times were good while he was my roommate, and he made some wicked spicy Chile. Mighty fine stuff, that Chile. Anyway, once we got the microwave, it was easier to have a warm snack all hours of the night even on weekends. Especially on weekends and when it was getting close to payday and folks didn’t have much money to run downtown to Columbus to party. Naturally, I’m telling you all of this for a specific reason, right? Of course, I am. It just wouldn’t be right to waste all these words for nothing. You know, it’s not really common anymore to see big red warning labels on the door microwave ovens. But they do come with warnings. Usually, smart buyers can read all of the warnings in the owner’s manual that comes with the product when they purchase a new one. But back in the day, those microwave ovens had big red warning labels on the door. Can you guess what those labels said? If you guessed that they said “DO NOT PUT METAL OR FOIL IN THIS OVEN,” you guessed correctly. Nowadays, you have to buy those labels separately and put them on the microwave ovens to meet OSHA standards, but the microwave oven is not required to have the label as long as the product documentation has all of the appropriate warnings. Nice, huh. Why am I telling you all of this? Have you figured it out yet? You must have, right. Well, here it is… Do you remember my baby powder toting roommate Di Anzo? Mister, smart as a box of rocks? Yeah, him. One Saturday night, he decided to heat up a can of soup. Yeah, you heard me right. A CAN of soup. As in metal. You know, METAL! So, he went right ahead and popped that can of soup into the microwave, set it on high, turned on the power, and the fireworks began. The damn dayroom lit up like a park on the fourth of July. He damn near burned the barracks down. As it was, he totally smoked the microwave oven. It was destroyed beyond repair. Did we get a replacement microwave oven? Yeah, right. And I got elected President of the United States. It was just another exercise in futility.
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