PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Local punk household, “The Underground Failroad,” is grieving for their microwave, which is considered “no longer functional” after the +30 button gave out, sources with frozen Hot Pockets confirmed.
“I gotta say, I’m disappointed, but not surprised at all,” said resident Brea Stokes, as she reached for her reading glasses and an instruction manual that was shoved in the junk drawer. “But I’m hopeful. This thing says there are all sorts of power settings that you could use to warm up your food! Normally I would just mash the +30 button into complete submission until I knew for certain that I’d burn the ever-living shit out of my mouth. Who knew that it had a clock too! I dunno, I’m feeling better and better about this whole new world of potential!”
Longtime couchmate Larry McCall doesn’t share the same sentiment as Stokes, and demands that the microwave be replaced immediately.
“Brea is a lot more pragmatic than the rest of us, and it’s to a fault. She’s got a brain that’s on a whole ‘nother level, and that’s fine, but the rest of us depend on that +30 button,” said McCall while thawing a bag of french fries in the sun. “I only eat when completely swerving my tits off on edibles and whatever alcohol is left over from the night before, and I’m not about to hit ‘time cook, three, zero, start,’ and repeat the entire process over and over again until the entire frozen lasagna is done. That one single button is what’s holding this entire household together, and it either gets fixed, or I’m outta here.”
Area electronics expert Shawn Daggz says that this problem is a lot more common than one would think.
“It’s not out of the ordinary for a perfectly good microwave to end up in a landfill, or worse the ocean, over a malfunctioning +30 button,” said Daggz. “You can try your best to educate your roommates on how to defrost and use the various power cycles, but the sad reality is that the cycle of abuse we see will continue so long as the +30 option is available to the general public. It’s only natural for us to lean on our crutches until they break, and it’s the reality we have to live with.”
At press time, McCall was seen quietly sobbing while trying to eat a frozen Stouffer’s mac and cheese straight out of the freezer.