Comparing Myself To My Microwave: Which Is Better?

This is actually a picture of my microwave. Not pictured: My angry co-worker.

One morning, I was not able to come into work, as my car was full of ice from the previous day's snowstorm and I was not able to get out of my driveway. I had the only key to my office at work, where it also had the department microwave, so my department co-workers can make use of it. Of course, because there is no access to the office, a senior department co-worker of mine was completely livid that day because she was not able to heat up her coffee in that office which I had the key.

I come into work the next morning to a barrage of complaints from this senior department co-worker, stating that I should not have the key to the office (despite my boss giving me the key to use in the first place), and that she should be able to heat up her coffee anytime she wanted in that office. As irrational as she sounded, I calmly advised her that she could also use the microwaves in the lunchroom if there is no access to the office. Predictably, this only enraged her even further as she continued to complain that she should not have to walk to the lunchroom to use the microwaves over there, and that she has the right to use the microwave in the office. I tell her that she was acting petty, and she then utters the comment that serves as the inspiration for this blog post:

"That microwave in that office is more important to this company than you!"

What a way to demoralize a fellow co-worker and to discredit any accomplishments that person has had at a company than to express a comment so rude and stupid. After that, she droned on about how long she worked at the company (as if it really means anything), and at that point, I just tuned her out. When my boss showed up at the office, I let him know about the events that transpired that morning.

The whole incident got me thinking about my own microwave and myself. To decide which is better, I devised a rigorous comparison on the benefits of being me, versus the benefits of being my microwave. Without further ado, here we go...

My microwave can defrost and heat up food. The primary way that my microwave can bring happiness to its hungry user is its ability to heat up cold food, so that the microwave can make bland food taste delicious again. Now, I do not have the specific ability that my microwave does, but I do have the ability to make people happy by being nice to others, listening to them, and making funny jokes. It may not exactly satisfy someone's hunger, but in the case of bringing happiness to others, I like to think that I am multi-talented in that aspect compared to the one-dimensional happiness that my microwave can bring.

My microwave has one-touch controls for heating up certain foods, such as frozen pizza, popcorn, and casseroles. Yet every time I have ever used the one-touch controls on my microwave to heat up these foods, it can never heat up the food properly. My microwave will either under-cook or over-cook these foods, resulting in reduced satisfaction from the hungry user. For the purposes of this analysis, I will not consider this a benefit of my microwave.

My microwave cannot communicate as well as I can. I can communicate through words and actions, while my microwave will only just beep at you. It will beep every time you press one of its many buttons, as well as beep at you four times when the cooking of your food is complete. At least that is more than one way to communicate from my microwave, which is quite impressive.

My microwave can display the time. Until I can find a way to display the time on my body, this is a point that I will have to concede to my microwave.

My microwave has four legs, while I only have two legs. However, it is not about how many legs you have; it is how you use them. With my two legs, I can stand upright and walk from place to place without any outside help. Because my microwave only has electric circuits and not a brain, it cannot move around with its four legs. In addition, my microwave's legs are more like pegs, so even if it could move around, it would not go very far due to the shortness of its legs. As of right now, my microwave cannot be moved without outside help, as I would have to push it or carry it in order for my microwave to be moved.

After this intensive analysis, I have decided that I am better than my microwave. Although my microwave can tell time and heat up food, it lacks usefulness in other essential functions that only a human can do, such as put on clothes, or make love to another human. I can already hear some readers of this post claim bias for myself, instead of calling things down the line between my microwave and myself. If you are one of those readers that claim I am biased, then I encourage you to go find a microwave and interview it, so that the microwave can express its benefits over a human. Good luck finding a microwave that can talk!