Warm-N-Swap, another foul.

The Warm-N-Swap was a disaster.  It started out as quite something to behold.  A bank of 10 microwaves stood ready at the community center with an elderly buy spy woman named Helen accepting and warming the meals.  She had it down to a carefully choreographed routine that could only come from having had this responsibility for many years.  The synchronization was flawless with timers beeping sequentially down the row as meals finished and the microwaves emptied, ready for the next entrée.  I watched with sincere admiration for 10 minutes or so as meals were served at impressively regular intervals.  Then I placed my meal on the table.  Almost immediately there were murmurs and I swear even a few gasps.  As soon as Helen caught sight of my meal she broke stride for what I’m sure was the first time in many years, and a microwave anxiously beeped behind her.  It was very noticeable as she hadn’t let one get beyond a single beep up to this point.  She shot me a quick glance that in an instant asked me “why are you doing this to me?”  I knew I had done something wrong and reached to take my meal back.  Helen, wanting to save face, beat me to it and thanked me in an obviously shaken tone.  I saw beads of sweat begin to appear on her upper lip.  She had the meal out of the box and added it to the pre-microwave staging row.  She mercifully quieted the beeping microwave (which by this time had company) and attempted regain her composure.  I’m sorry to report that she never quite did, and it was entirely my fault.  Once again I had inadvertently committed a somewhat serious faux pas rivaling my bringing PBR to my first tire fire.  I had chosen a meal that I thought was worthy of swapping.  It was a tilapia filet with white wine sauce and capers, long-grain rice and vegetable medley, and a chocolate soufflé …and the only way to serve it properly was to warm it on 50% power for 3 minutes with only the fish uncovered, stir the medley, another minute on 50%, uncover the soufflé completely then cook for the whole meal for another 2 minutes on high.  And yes, then we (and I mean the whole T-Park) were supposed to wait and “Let stand in microwave for an additional 2 minutes”.  As if the Warm-N-Swap routine weren’t sabotaged enough by the directions, it was also repeatedly pointed out that my meal “ain’t even got no damned taters in it”.  Helen followed the directions precisely, at the cost of serving countless under-warmed pot pies and at one time having only the microwave containing my contribution running at all.  Though I had technically participated in the Swap, I didn’t dare help myself to any of the standard 4-minutes-on-high meals that were churned out, but instead waited until everyone was gone.  Only then did I pick up the last meal on the table:  a very cold, very lonely, holiday ruining, crowd quieting tilapia meal.  The evening just HAS to look up, doesn’t it?  I’m going to wander a bit more.