I was 17, alone, and fueled by a dangerous mix of Hot Pockets and apathy. I stared at that microwave and thought, “What if… just what if… the rules don’t apply to me?” So I put a fork in there. Full metal. Full send. Sparks flew. Like, literal fireworks. The microwave made a noise I can only describe as an electrical scream. I panicked and unplugged it like I was defusing a bomb. The microwave never worked right again. Every time it ran, it smelled like burnt toast and gave my hotpockets a weird metallic taste. My mom blamed it on “cheap appliances.” I said nothing. I’ve lived with the guilt.
Anyway, that was 10 years ago. I’m now an electrician. I still don’t trust microwaves.
Comments
Perfect start to a safe and prosperous electrican career!
I, too, have experimented with the microwave. Many years ago I had a small tape recorder. I decided that I wanted to hear what the inside of the microwave sounded like when it was on. Hit record, started the microwave. The smell wasn’t great.
I heard there is this new song that says there might just be no rules. Got this from a shirt brother.
Sounds like you owe an apology to your mom (or your microwave.)
I put one of the cadburys chocolate bars in there with the metallic-y wrapper 😂
Why does this sound like my best friend who is also an electrician…. Is this you?
My “hot pocket and apathy” phase occurred much later in life when I was 25 or so
Beautiful, I saw the top portion and jsut knew this was gonna be an excellent read.
I microwaved forks several times. Most of the time with a dish – no effect. Two times I tried just the fork out of curiosity – the first time there was a single little pop and nothing else.
The microwave worked just fine. A few months later I tried it again, but for a whole minute absolutely nothing happened. Very disappointing…
I guess I have a safe and boring microwave. I was 34 at the time of my experiments.
This literally set my friend’s house on fire. Her son put a utensil in the microwave. 😱
I remember that one time my friend wanted to warm up some soup, so they put an entire metal pot with the soup in the microwave. Safe to say, the microwave died.
I messed up badly by messing with a microwave. Way back in late 80s, I put my fingers of one hand in the holes where the door closes and then I pressed start. Needless to say I woke up across the kitchen and my fingers were smoking. My mom was soo mad because we only had it 1 week.
Isn’t the Magnetron a great name probably better than the invention itself.
Once microwaved a spoon and i think the universe understood that was an accident i was baked out of my skull
When I was like 14 my stepmother was putting a bowl with something in the microwave. I notice the spoon still being in the bowl and told her she needs to take it out. She immediately got mad, yelled at me how dumb I was and put it in. Then the microwave went boomshakalaka
You traumatized yourself into a whole ass career. 😂
We used to put lays chip bags in the microwave and watch them shrink. Fun times.
My friends wanted to know what would happen if we microwaved a can of vegetables.
After three minutes they discovered how a faraday cage works.
I microwaved a spoon in a microwave by accident one time. A full 2 mins, nothing.happened.
It was inside a tupperware box with rice. I still to this day want to know the science behind there being no reaction.
I was 17 when I became a man too
You need to put a CD in for about 10 seconds. Super cool and it hasn’t hurt my microwave or at least not yet. I, too, was an Electrician. Local 611
Wasn’t there a whole YouTube show on this? Like someone let the intrusive thoughts win and they microwaved all sorts of weird stuff?
My husband was given a non working microwave from work. He replaced the fuse and it worked immediately. Turns out his coworkers were putting metal items in it when the boss was away.
All I can focus on is the hot pockets and how I kinda do and kinda don’t want to relive those days from my youth.
This reminded me of a YouTube channel from way back in the day that involved two guys microwaving any and everything to see what would happen. I used to watch those videos religiously, and so I never had the impulse to try anything that I knew would mess up my microwave.
I was 10. My grandmother was watching me for the night. I wanted some popcorn and all I knew was microwave popcorn. I threw it in, hit the button and all seemed normal. Once it was done, I noticed a ton of kernels didn’t pop. I’d already opened the bag, so what to do? I tied a twist tie around it and put the bag back in.
And that’s how I found out twist ties had metal in them.
I bet my grandma hadn’t moved that fast in decades.
When I was little I put a lunchable in the microwave for 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds and it caught fire
I heated up the rest of the Costco hotdog because real tinfoil isn’t white on the inside, right? It’s probably… Fire in the microwave!!! 😫😂 I’m dumb sometimes.
Hahahaha!!! I love that you are now an electrician
Mine wasn’t a experiment. Mine was purely a combination of accident and airheadedness: I had something wrapped in tin foil that I put I the microwave. The ark it created was beautiful but very stupid
I had a friend who put a frozen dead hamster in the microwave to heat it up. She said she didn’t want to bury it frozen. Yeah…. The microwave had to be thrown away 😬
Was this your first what the fork moment?
I put a CD in one once. It looked really cool but the smell was horrible. Took forever to air out my parents kitchen. Back when I was a stoned teenager, and up all hours of the night being “a stoner” lol. Spoons don’t effect them I learned by mistake. They do get very hot tho.
I’m telling, MOM!!!!!!!!!
once i was making pizza rolls in the microwave. the box had instructions like “for 6 rolls, heat for 2 minutes; for 12 rolls, heat for 4” and had a few options of pizza roll counts, but not as many as were in the box. i said fuck it, microwave all of them. it cooked them, but never turned on again after that.
I accicdentally left a fork in without realizing it, also had earbuds in so I didn’t notice until I pulled the pasta out, surprised it did t start a fire
I had a frozen capri sun that I wanted to melt a little. I’m smart enough to know you shouldn’t microwave metal, but figured I could trick the microwave by wrapping it in a paper towel. Yeah. Paper towel caught on fire and thankfully I threw the whole thing in the sink before the house burned down.
“I was 17, alone, and fueled by a dangerous mix of Hot Pockets and apathy.” No better words spoken.
That reminds me of when I was maybe 10 and I wondered what would happen if you stuck a paperclip in the ends of a boombox cord and plug it in while holding the wire.
Well…. The wire gets red hot in an instant, burns your fingers, you drop it on the clearly flammable 70’s carpet. Then you hurriedly try to mask the smell of burnt carpet with a shitload if incense and hope your parents don’t notice.
I don’t trust microwaves either. But the toasters….they’re planning something. I can hear them murmuring German terms about worms and I squirm.
I like to consider myself something of a microwave expert, I melt metals like aluminum and bronze in a microwave and pour it into molds to make small trinkets like rings >:)
I’m going to date myself a bit, but when I did this the microwave needed a new magnetron unit shortly thereafter. I’m not sure if it was under warranty or not.
No one ever knew.
Meanwhile, watching Transformers I was always like “Optimus Prime needs a fork” or “stick a fork in him!” and literally no one got it. My own private in-joke.
Contrary to belief this normally does not hurt the microwave. What is a danger is if there’s nothing there to disperse the rays and if that happens there is a risk of creating a standing wave which could damage the contraption.
We were having dinner at my grandmas, and I put a plate of food in the microwave to melt the cheese a little. The microwave started sparking like crazy, smoking, the works. Everyone PANICKED. The plate itself had metal in it.
Now stick a CD or DVD in there and tell me what you see. It’s like your very own personal thunderstorm 🤣
My father in law heard you could recharge batteries in the microwave. I woke up in the middle of the night to the most awful burning plastic smell. He was microwaving his tv remote control. The entire remote. FYI it did not recharge the batteries. It did destroy the remote.
I once was sleep deprived doing my dissertation, I probably haven’t slept in like 36 hours or something crazy like that. I had my coffee in one of those self stirring mugs with batteries inside. It got cold, so naturally put it in the microwave to heat up. I walked away and just as I’d realised what I’d just done I heard a loud bang. When I turned off and opened the microwave a black cloud came out and the worst smell I’ve experienced in my life. That smell stayed for weeks in my tiny studio. Somehow the microwave survived but I never used it again.
I played with magnets close to my tv because I’d heard it would mess it up and wanted to see if it really would.
Much safer but just as dumb.
Try egg now
I melted a plastic bowl in the microwave once.
Turns out when you put chocolate squares in the microwave, if you don’t stir them, they hold their shape until they’re hot enough to burn through the bowl.
Took about an hour for the white smoke to dissipate from the kitchen.
There’s a YouTube channel that used to have a series called “Is it a Good Idea to Microwave This”, Hilarious.
Please take a few moments to notice this post is clearly AI generated guys 😭
Giveaways:
— Clever one-liner at the end
— Previous posts all HEAVILY overuse em dashes, must have made it obvious because the prompt for this post removed them.
— Using direct quotes when recalling what someone said
— Perfect grammar, no basic human errors
— All previous posts follow identical format with the same exact writing style. All weird, outlandish “funny” stories with a sassy, humorous, witty tone
Reread it and it’s pretty obvious really fast. Take a look at the weird post and comment history as well. I put another explanation in the replies for those who can’t believe it’s AI.
Ask ChatGPT to spew out a story like this for you, it’ll give the exact answer:
”I was fifteen, powered by Mountain Dew and misguided confidence, when I decided the universe needed a little chaos—and apparently, that meant microwaving a fork. It wasn’t rebellion, exactly; more like a science experiment sponsored by boredom and teenage invincibility. As sparks danced like tiny lightning bolts, I stared into the microwave like it was a portal to another dimension. For a brief, shining second, I thought I could taste the cosmos… then Mom grounded me for a week. Worth it.”
They weren’t literal fireworks. They were figurative.
“Fueled by a dangerous mix of Hot Pockets and apathy” is goddamn poetry hahaha
When I was in high school we would microwave CDs never noticed any changes to the microwave but the metallic part of the disc would crack all over
These are the types of confessions I come here for lol
If nobody said it, I hope you finally bought your Mom a new microwave…..
Im 30 and still dont trust toaster that are left plugged in. I don’t know why its specifically kitchen appliances, but I just unplug EVERYTHING thats not in use left by family members. My brother argued that if I do that, then I should apply it to my PC and monitors too because its ridiculous. Idk man, toasters feel like they can just….combust.
The coolest is putting a CD in the microwave. It’s like having a mini star in your microwave!
I once put a loaf of bread in the microwave to defrost it (my family kept them in the freezer), but I forgot to remove the metal bread tie. Almost set the microwave on fire, luckily it didn’t ruin the bread.
This is why they don’t give Darwin awards to people under 18. Their brains are not fully developed and the stupid things they do don’t count apparently.
Haha at least it wasn’t stepping off a cliff to see if gravity still applies to you.
I was a smoker and desperate for a lighter. I didn’t have a stove or hot plate (in the barracks). Everyone was on Christmas leave and it was the middle of the night.
I took a sharpie, put foil underneath the tip, turned the microwave on. After a few seconds a fire started on the tip, I took the sharpie out, used the flame to light my cigarette. Fuckin MacGyver lol
I accidentally microwaved a ketchup packet in the carry out container and the entire microwave lit up neon blue
I put an egg in a cup of water and tried hard boiling it. I set the timer to 8 mins.
Nothing happened, So i set the timer to 22 mins and slowly sat down under the microwave back against the face of the dishwasher, talking on the kitchen phone ( showing the date as being early to mid 90’s). BOOM. the egg explodes shoots over my head and lands against the wall across the galley kitchen. My mom needed to replace the microwave and blamed it on pour early appliances.
When I was a kid my mum got a new microwave and managed to convince her to let me ‘play’ with the old one before throwing it out. Took it in the garden and proceeded to find everything I could to shove in there. A CD is classic and looks cool, eggs explode and cutlery sparks. It ended when something caught fire and had to put it out 😅
>I still don’t trust microwaves.
Shakes head My dude, that’s on you. You knew full well what would happen, yet you still did it!
> I’m now an electrician. I still don’t trust microwaves.
The lesson you should have learned was not to trust 17-year-olds
As someone who talked her brother into blowing up their parents on more than one occasion, neither do I.
If you’re wondering, once was literally. It was already dead though, and my uncle set it up to explode upon being shot. Uncles are great.
12 years old. Opened a pack of pop tarts and laid it in the microwave. This was back when the wrapper looked like paper but was foil-lined for freshness (I assume). It created such a beautiful arcing light show… and lots of anxiety about accidentally putting metal in the microwave. Obviously I did not become an electrician or an electrical engineer…
My nephew microwaved a pot of macaroni and cheese for over half an hour before anyone noticed. My room was in the basement so it took longer for it to reach me. We had to air out the house and stay at the in-laws for a weekend. Terrible smell.
I once tried to reheat takeaway in its original container without thinking about the fact that the thermal paper receipt taped to it still technically has metal in it, technically.
The paper turned fully black, every last centimeter was black, one side of the microwave melted slightly on the inside, and I was so afraid that it would be scavenged from the dumpster and cause a fire that I cut the cord off before tossing it.
It’s OK, when I was like 7 I put an electronic thermometer in the microwave thinking if I only did it for a few seconds it could get high enough to fake a fever. Less than a second in and the thermometer basically exploded. Needless to say it didn’t work lol
One of my best friends in highschool microwaved dry dog shit to see if it’d turn back into fresh dog shit. I walked by just in time to see his dad come running out of the house and chuck the microwave onto the lawn while gagging the whole time lmao.
“What if the rules don’t apply to me?” has to be the most 17-years-old sentence in the entire universe.
The microwave didn’t lie to you, society did. It made you think you were special. So special the rules didn’t apply to you. The microwave told you the truth.
sigh I removed a metal tray from a pie before putting it in our braand new microwave. Hubby saw me do this, and he seemed really surprised. I explained that metal and microwaves were not friends. Turned out he’d been slowly killing our microwaves for years. (We’d gone through 3 in 4 years).
My sister and I used to put my grandparent’s gold-edged plates in the microwave for the fireworks.
“Electrical Scream” is the description I have been looking for for 40 years 🤗
Microwaves are great if you like to eat cold food from a bowl that is too hot to touch.
I put a big bowl of water and white vinegar in a microwave. Was going to use the steam to clean the inside. Boiled the mixture for ten minutes. Came back a few minutes later and decided to run it again. It exploded. Blew the door open and broke a pop rivet that holds the door onto the hinge. Not really sure what happened.