Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 17, 2019

Well well well, here we are again.

I’ve got a small slot to fill with my dribble this week and that means one thing: you’re looking down the barrel of a totally unprovoked outburst from me about some innocuous, insignificant thing that shouldn’t affect me as much as it does.

This week, it’s the loudness of microwaves.

Now, I get it. The microwave beeps because, once they’re done reheating your food, they want to make you aware of that. They don’t want you to forget that you’ve just warmed your fruitcake to the perfect temperature and they won’t stand idly by while your cake goes so cold that the butter you planned to smear on it doesn’t even melt by the time you remember your treat. It’s excited for you. “Wooooo your food is ready beb,” it shouts out to you in microwave speak, which is a series of piercing beeps.

And, look, that’s a noble goal. But when other people are the house and they’re trying to sleep/watch TV/live their lives in relative harmony, those beeps translate to something else. It’s no longer a friendly reminder, but a declaration to the entire household that you’re tucking into another ill-advised snack. “Oi,” it shouts, with a digital sneer, “this loser is filling up the dark void inside her with slightly-warmed pumpkin scone again!” It’s even worse if the beep sounds late at night, alerting the whole household to the fact that you’re ingesting food at weird times. “Hey!” the malicious microwave shouts, “this scone-scoffer has completely lost control of her life!”

It also has the power to wake housemates from their slumber, transforming using a microwave from a simple act of raising the temperature of food to an act of aggression. It could be interpreted as an audible middle finger to your flatmate, shouting at them that you care more about melted butter than their quality of sleep (I mean, that could very well be true, but you don’t want to go broadcasting that).

No matter what microwave you use, it’s the same thing. Sure, the beeping may be a different tone or the completed cooking time might be alerted via a passive aggressive tune, but the nuke boxes still make some kind of sound.

I don’t understand why this has been allowed to continue for so long. I mean, we have been to the moon, but we can’t have a microwave that doesn’t beep?!

I’m not trying to say that we need to neuter the microwave completely, silencing their robotic voices forever, but I can’t understand why the beep is the norm. I feel like it would be more effort for manufacturers to programme beeps. The beep is a deliberate thing. The powers at be that design microwaves intended for them to screech their obscenities and you have to wonder why we as an opposable-thumb-wielding species haven’t evolved past this.

I try not to be political or push any kind of agenda with this column, but I think I can speak for a great many folk when I say that something must be done. Action must be taken. Enough is enough.

And I’m not saying that I would use one of my three genie wishes on this (unless I was able to get away with wishing for more wishes, in which case it would be a free for all) but I would very much like to have the option to mute my microwave.

A girl can dream.