A Micro Call

 

Phone rings. Telephone-answering machine. Female voice.

 

Your call cannot be taken at the moment. Please leave your name and number after the tone. BEEEP ...

 

Damn ... it's that stupid female machine again ... hello ... hello ... hello Vic. This is aunt Elma here ... I am phoning you from Glasgow ... I am leaving my name on your female answering-machine as you told me to ... it is ... E ... L ... M ... A ... aunt Elma.

 

I am ringing to thank you all for the lovely gift you sent us. It arrived a few days ago but we did not ring to thank you then for reasons which you will understand later on in this telephone call.

 

The package came in a big box delivered by a man in a van ... it was white I think ... the van. He said he worked for an Internet Shopping Website, whatever that is, and that you sent us this package.

 

Inside there was another box with a micro something oven written on it ... wait ... I'll ask Jim ...

 

(Pause)

 

Jim said it was a microwave oven. There was also a note saying it was a gift from you. 

 

There was also a big booklet with instructions to make the oven work ... It was written in many languages ... French ... Italian ... German ... Dutch I think ... and lots of other languages. It was a waste of time, Jim said, seeing we only speak English.

He sat down and read the book and soon fell asleep in front of the TV.

Why did you send us a micro something oven Vic? Our oven here works OK ... we've had it twenty years if not a day less. 

Anyways,  ... thank you ... we put the oven on top of the TV. There's a shelf there as you recall; we moved away all the pictures on the shelf ... good time too. I hated so much that photo of Uncle Ebeneezer with his stupid moustache, so your oven was a good reason to get rid of the photos and put the oven on the shelf.

We tried something simple on the oven for a start. We thought we would warm a cup of milk before going to bed. We put the cup on that round thing that goes round and round and your uncle Jim punched the password on the panel on the oven with all them numbers.

We could not find the password in the booklet ... in any language; but Jim must have got it right because the light came on and the plate inside started going round and round.

It was fun watching it ... better than the TV which had a boring program on at the time.

Anyways ... the micro thing kept going round and round. For quite some time and inside we saw the milk in the cup boiling over and pouring all over the place ... we did not know how to make it stop.

Then the milk started coming out of the oven door ... all over the shelf it was ... and it started dripping on the TV below. 

Luckily I managed to get Jim out of the armchair ... he suffers badly with his back and is not as fast as he used to be. Oh ... he used to be so agile and supple when young ... I did like that. But now he's as stiff as a dead body.

 

So he pulled the electric plug out of the socket and we spent the evening cleaning up the burnt milk everywhere.

 

But that's not the end of it ... Vic. I told Jim not to use the microbe oven ... told him to put it in the garage. Did he listen? Did he heck?

 

I was out the other day shopping at the shops ... the ones down the road. You know the ones? The shops where you stopped for a while for the lights to change so you could cross the road and the dog you were holding on a lead peed all over your leg. How funny that was. I laughed and laughed so much I wet myself too, I tell you. You surely remember the shops I mean. Where that rotund assistant Murgatroyd Haberdasher-Brown works. She sells knickers and hats. Just next door to the hairdressers Curl Up and Dye where Miss Blodry Ya-Hattoff cut your hair once totally bald and you were a tad upset. Just opposite the florists owned by those Dutch twin-sisters; Two Lips from Amsterdam. Next to Doctor Daya Beatty's practice ... 

 

Anyways ... I was at the shops and Jim tried to be helpful and did some washing. You know ... vests and underwear and other unmentionables. My pink satin underpants where not totally dry ... a bit damp he said ... so to dry them he thought he'd warm them up in the microbe oven.

 

He put in a password ... he said he can't remember what it was ... and kept a look out in case something went wrong. Well, it did again ... He said my satin undergarments suddenly lit up on fire inside the microbe oven and the flames got out and started spreading on the shelf above the TV. 

 

Jim was standing at the time, rather than sitting in the armchair ... good job too! He quickly threw the cup of tea on the microbe oven and there were sparks everywhere ... so he said. Nearly got the house on fire.

 

I came in just then thankfully ... I saw the smoke everywhere and I beat the oven and the shelf with my coat which I took off quickly. The fire went out. Could have burnt the house down if I did not come in on time.

 

Anyways ... I'm ringing to thank you for your gift Vic. We've put the microbe oven in the garage for you to collect next time you're in Glasgow.