Sharp Lifestyle

This is my day to catch up on posts, it seems. Jean and I went out on
Tuesday afternoon, before picking up Kelly from daycare, and
visited Sears, with an eye to replacing our ailing microwave. Before we
left for Vegas, Jean detected a funny plasticky smell, and assumed it
was the microwave. So we got an older back-up model out of the closet
and began using it, with the intention of shopping for a new one when we
got back from our trip.

After we got back, Kelly and Jean went to bed early, and I was futzing
around in the kitchen in the dark. I looked for the light switch over
the stove, and hit the fan switch by accident instead. I immediately
heard a strained humming, but no air movement. I got the light on, and
popped the filter off the hood over the stove. Out of the hood fell a
strip of wood, looking somewhat beat up. The fan started to creak
around. Turns out that the dang thing was jammed by the strip of wood
stuck between the blades!

So my new operating hypothesis is that the smell that Jean detected was
coming from the fan. Coincidentally, our back-up microwave decided to
stop working just then, so I plugged in our main, supposedly broken
microwave and tried it out. No funny smell. Jean agrees that it
might be okay, but with no back-up microwave, and the fact that
we hardly ever use the stove, we agreed to make this microwave
the backup, and buy a new one.

So we made it to Sears, and found the microwaves just fine. We looked
them over and narrowed it down to a couple of models. One of them, a
Sharp (our current one is also a Sharp), had a metallic finish (burnished
aluminum such as you see in professional kitchens) and it really
appealed to me. By this time there was a sales lady hovering around
asking if she could help us. Jean asked if there was any unit I liked,
and I said "that one. I want that one. Let's get it now."
"qbullet.smiley"

Jean was dumbfounded. She said later that she'd never seen me react to
an appliance that way before. But I was adamant. I wanted that
microwave, and said so in no uncertain terms. So what did the sales lady
do? She started giving us a sales pitch! "This feature is fun. Just
enter a number and punch this button..." "Uh huh," I said. "We'll take
it."

"I think you'll really like it. Look at what else it can do..." This
went on through three or four exchanges, with me always saying the
equivalent of "can I buy the damn thing already?" But she was a sales
bot, determined to walk nonchalantly through her sales brochure,
pertaining to the sales of microwaves, Sharp brand.

Finally she agreed to actually find the model for us in the
warehouse, and it turned out that they'd have to order one, not
available until mid-April. At this point I was unwilling to negotiate
the sales bot routine on yet another model, so I just said "please order
it for us, then." I believe that the microwave we have will
last at least that long, so cross your fingers. Oh, by the way, did you
know you can now scramble eggs in a microwave?!!
"qbullet.smiley"