Microwave Woes

Last month my very large and very inefficient microwave died. One day it was working and the next it did not. I was totally outraged! Though in all fairness I have had it 10 years and I bought it second hand then. So .... outraged or not the sad truth was that I now had a 60 pound paperweight sitting int he cupboard.

So one day two weeks ago I trundled my little self off to Walmart to scope out the microwaves. After hemming and hawing and pretending that I actually knew something about what I was doing, I chose a lower end mid range micowave and carted it back home with me.

I excitedly unpacked it and placed it tenderly in the cupboard. I polished the chrome and showed it off to my son who heated a cup of coffee in it and said, "Hey do you know the 5 does not work?" There I stood looking at my beautiful wonderful purchase .... with disbelief across my face. My son immediately said, "Hey you have the receipt, so take it back." But that seemed like such a huge miserable process. So my solution was .... "who needs a 5? Use the 4 or the 6 instead". That kind of chicken thinking backfired the next day when I realized the that the start button did not work on the new microwave either.

So today my son and I headed back to the big city to try to return the microwave. I cannot even express how much I was dreading this. It had been two weeks since I had purchased it and I had actually used it before I realized that it was not working. I was not sure they would accept it back. So with fear in my heart I marched to the counter and said, "I would like to exchange this microwave for another because the 5 and the start button do not work." The manager looked at me and said, "Okay". I almost fell over I was so shocked. But I was soon loading a new microwave into the car and heading back home with it.

As I have reflected on the whole process I was reminded of a few things.

• Reality is seldom worse than the dread of what I think the reality might be (fear)
• Putting it off did not make it fix itself (procrastination)
• Having someone to push me to do the right thing helped me do it (encouragement)
• It is nice to have someone around to lug around heavy microwaves (muscles)

All in all, my fears were groundless and I caused myself a lot of stress by dreading how horrible it was going to be. Perhaps I will be quicker next time to not stay in my fear but move towards a solution. I can always hope .....

Just Connie