Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Phase Changes of Microwavable Items

A microwave is an interesting thing, and, of course, a handy way to quick heat a tasty morsel for a nearly instantaneous meal.  The following is a quick guide to your standard microwave on "hi temp" setting and its minute by minute effect on your reheated food:

-one minute: food is still a frozen block of ice, reminiscent of something chipped out of Siberian tundra.
-two minutes: food still frozen, but now in a slushy state...akin to a snow cone served up during a Fresno afternoon in July, or, and perhaps more accurately, similar to the interior chamber of Mitch McConnell's reptilian heart.
-three minutes: congrats...it's now (almost) defrosted.
-four minutes: you could eat this, but it's 30 degrees lower than the ambient room temperature, and somewhat gag inducing.
-five minutes: coolish. Food is now warmed to a tepid 64.27 degrees Fahrenheit.  You COULD eat this...but only if you're truly desperate.
-five minutes and one second: holy christ, is that a plate of magma in there?  Did my burrito just achieve nuclear fusion and turn itself into a self sustaining plasma reaction?  This thing is hotter than Satan's butthole and putting it into my mouth (the burrito, not Satan's butthole.  BTW, Satan's butthole is a theoretical temperature often used in physics circles to describe high heat values along the Planck scale) would not only induce a third degree burn from the surface of my tongue all the way down to my lower colon, but would, in all probability, cause me to self combust in a puff of pure oxidized carbon.  The remnants of the burrito would then fall to the ground, it's radiating heat still not exhausted, and burrow its way to the earth's core in a China Syndrome type scenario.

Unfortunately, there is no five minutes and one half second time setting on microwaves, and the preceding examples are all that a modern microwave is capable of achieving in food preparation.  So, my advice to you, is just choke down that gag inducing 64.27 degree burrito, and save yourself from the ruinous experience of the last thing your mind comprehends as you explode in a cloud of carbonized particles is a hole opening up in the earth's crust, and the contents of the earth's molten core exploding across the continent in a sea of molten nickel, iron, rare earth elements, and left over beans, cheese, rice and carne asada.

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