Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Kaboom!

Once upon a time, a friend of mine went to university.
She was younger than me by some years, and was, according to all who met her, very intelligent.
At school she'd got top marks in all her classes, her favourites of which were maths, science and physics, and she received lots of pieces of special paper proving she was good at the subjects as well.
She stayed on at school in order to get her A levels in all her favourite subjects, and because she passed with very good grades, quite a few universities said they would be very pleased if she would go to them to study even more.
So, she sat down with her mummy and daddy and talked about which was the best place for her to go to and after they'd decided that, they then had to choose whether or not she stayed in halls or with some other students in a house share.
Now, although my friend was very clever, she was totally naive when it came to simple things such as how to use a washing machine, boil an egg, or use a vacuum cleaner, as all the time she'd been living at home, her mummy had done everything for her.
Taking this into account, her and her parents decided that staying in halls would be the best option, mainly because there would always be someone nearby to help her with anything domestic, and also she wouldn't have to cook as there was a nearby canteen and cafe on campus.
And so, later that summer, off she went to stay away from home for the first time in her life.
She settled into uni life quite well apart from a severe bout of home-sickness which she got over by studying hard and discovering alcohol and boys for the first time in her life.
Some months went by and she was invited to spend a weekend at some friends from her class that were staying in shared digs a few miles away from campus.
Off she went with her overnight bag and a large bottle of cider to enjoy the party, and enjoy the party she did indeed.
The next day, around lunchtime, she awoke to find the rest of the household still asleep.
As she had not eaten much the night before, she was rather hungry and so she went to have a rifle through the kitchen cupboards to find something to eat.
To her joy she unearthed a small tinned steak and kidney pudding, which was one of her favourites as her mummy had cooked it for her many times before.
She read the instructions which stated that the pudding could either be boiled in the tin for a long time, or placed in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and being rather hungry she went for the latter option.
She placed the pudding in the microwave, and decided that the 'high' option would be even quicker, and to speed things up even more, she decided it might be an idea to give it a couple of minutes extra, just in case.
She then went into the front room to have a sit down and await the 'ping'.
But the 'ping' never came.
Instead, a short while later, there came a bloody great,

KABOOM!

Which woke everyone in the house and some of the neighbours.
My friend went back into the kitchen to find the microwave in parts, which in turn were covered in fragments of steak and kidney pudding and gravy, strewn around the kitchen.
When her friends asked her what she'd done, it transpired that she had missed out rather important parts of the instructions, such as taking the pudding out of the tin, or even making a hole in the lid of the tin to let the pressure out. She did not know (despite her love for physics and science) that it is not a good idea to put pressurized metal objects into a microwave.
Unless of course you want to try and make it explode.