Rating Microwave Meal Instructions

For those wondering, I'm kind of borrowing the idea for this post from The Book of Ratings, so I encourage you to

head over there and read their stuff (which is both thought provoking and hilarious!). I promise there stuff is a lot funnier then the following:

I've been eating a lot of microwave meals lately and it struck me...when did making a meal become so complicated? Venting, stirring, letting sit, etc. What happened to throwing it in the microwave and hitting a few buttons?

Pizza Silver Discs: I love these things, they’re really mostly grey, but the point of them is to somehow re-direct the microwaves to hit the pizza more efficiently. Shoddy science and messing with the direction in which microwaves travel, brilliant!. Now that’s how I want to cook my meal, with as many microwave rays going in as many directions as possible! A

Rotate Dish: This seems to be left over from days of yore when most microwaves didn’t have the rotating dish in the middle. The directions call for you to cook the meal a certain amount of time, then stop it, manually rotate it, and continue cooking. Seems to me we’re pandering to the people who refuse to get out of the 80’s. D

Stir: As above, this step requires you to cook for a certain amount of time, then stop it, perform the stated action, and then continue cooking. Annoying, but at least it’s not something most modern microwaves do for you already. Most annoying is the fact that the remaining cooking time is 1 minute or less, requiring you to sit around twiddling your thumbs in front of the microwave for that minute, since there’s not much time to do much else. C

Peel Back Cover: Now we come to the section where various products tell you different ways to vent your product. This is the lamest of the three options. Basically, pull the plastic cover back an inch or so and let cook. Yeah. C

Cut Slit in Cover: Slightly cooler is when they ask you to cut a slit in the cover. Of course, they never specify how big of a slit they mean. Some will direct you where to cut the slit (over the vegetables, for instance), but they never tell you whether to cut a huge gash in the cover or whether to cut it only an inch. B

Poke Holes in Cover: My favorite of the venting options. Basically, take a fork or a knife and stab the cover a few times. Great for relieving stress! Again, no specifications are given on how many holes, so I fear I may be venting too much on particularly stressful days. A

Let Sit in Microwave: Again, someone who knows more about the science of microwaves then I determined it’s best to let the meal sit in the microwave before eating, instead of taking it out and exposing it to the air. Again, shoddy science, but without the cool disc sending microwaves bouncing this way and that. C

And there you have it folks, good eating!