My German wife and I like to eat a few soft boiled eggs for brunch on the weekends, but sometimes we make too many, and one egg goes uneaten. Being the stingy nerds we are, we always save the remaining egg and put it in the refrigerator for later. We do this knowing we will never actually eat it, because eating cold, soft boiled eggs is like slurping the mucus out of a giant eyeball. My wife has a special method for reheating these eggs, however, so I want you to imagine last weekend, when this small German woman explained to me with an adorably subtle accent and just a hint of condescension exactly how it works:
“This is how you heat up a soft boiled egg in the microwave; you just put it in for 5 seconds on low, but you have to be very careful.”
I nodded without a trace of interest and left the kitchen in order to set the table in the living room. As I was arranging the knives and forks, I heard the microwave run for exactly 5 seconds. Then, curiously, I heard it run for an additional 5 seconds. This is the sound it made:
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, ding!
*microwave door is opened and then closed again*
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, BOOM, ding!
When I returned to the kitchen, I saw my wife holding the microwave door open, mouth agape, with a mixture of silent shock and confusion on her face. She was staring at the remains of an egg so utterly devastated it actually spilled out of the microwave and into the sink below. It was like the Devil himself stepped out from the maw of hell, extended one clawed finger and said, “Fuck THAT egg…” and detonated it with a hex of black magic, then descended once more into his fiery lair, smiling to himself because human suffering just got a little bit worse.
“I thought the egg could handle another 5 seconds,” said my wife, pawing at the orange and white mess with a sponge. “I think I was overconfident.”
Don’t blame her, I know of a physicist who did exactly the same. My lovely wife once ruined a microwave because she tried to de-clump cocoa powder (no milk involved).
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Oooo! That sounds dangerous. Somebody else commented about microwaving grapes to make plasma. I never knew this stuff as a kid!
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My first experience with a microwave was back when they were called RadarRange. While in college we babysat for a doctor and his wife. she had won the Pillsbury national Bake Off and it came as one of the prizes. She had these really good pastries and told us how to heat them for maybe 10-15 seconds, max. I knew nothing about a microwave and thought surely 30 would work better. They came out as the very finest charcoal briquettes ready to be used on the BBQ.
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Haw haw! I love it! Thank you for reading and for the great (historical) comment, bdd3!
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She’s lucky it exploded *inside* the microwave. I foolishly tried to cook an egg this way. It exploded when I cracked it open. It was not pretty…
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Oh man, I’m glad you didn’t lose an eye, Allen!
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Too funny, I just did the same thing last night but I’m American :) I didn’t get any photos though as I was trying to get it all cleaned before my French boyfriend saw it, he had heard it though so in the end I was busted… Thanks for the laugh!
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Thank you for the great comment, UnderAnAfricanSun! Aw man, you gotta take pictures next time. :)
Did you French boyfriend have a sense of humor about your egg incident?
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“Fuck that egg!” hahahaha. Wonderful. I too have been a victim of the microwave egg. Solidarity my yolked brethren.
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Haw haw haw haw haw! This is one of my favorite comments so far.
Thanks for reading, Nukemm33! Did you take any pictures of your egg problems?
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That’s hilarious!
maybe it would be safer to put the egg in a bowl filled with water when reheating it…
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See, now that would require actual common sense, Duaimei. :)
Thank you for the comment and for reading our post! come back again soon!
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This post is da bomb. Just gotta’ love you guys!
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Thank you Donna! Your blog is looking great, by the way!
Have a fantastic day!
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Vielen Dank for stopping by!
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As soon as I saw the title of the email in my inbox, I thought, “Oh no …” Condolences on the loss of your soft boiled egg. :)
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Haw haw, thanks, Beth. Now we know better. Well, my wife does. I don’t nuke my eggs. :)
Thank you for reading and commenting. Have a fantastic day.
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I didn’t laugh – honest !
[I’m not going to say anything about your wife’s ‘microwave mastery’ in case she takes offence and decides to track me down ! ] :lol:
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We want you to laugh, Duncanr! Laugh at our misery! :)
J/K. Have a great day!
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Ein Ei : 25 Cent
Zehn Sekunden Strom : 0,2 Cent
Ihr Gesicht nach dem “BOOM” : Unbezahlbar!
Great!!
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Haw haw! Great comment, Karsten. Love it. :)
Have a great day!
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The best way to clean a microwave when this happens is to place it on the side so the door is facing upwards, fill it with a bucket of soapy water, close the door and then switch to a medium setting for 10 minutes. Once finished, empty the contents down the sink.
….this is a joke by the way and please don’t let your wife read it!
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Oh my God. I pictured doing that as you described it and I thought to myself, “This guy is gonna get himself killed doing that… oh wait. He’s kidding.”
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Okay… now I know I either won’t be overconfident with eggs in the microwave – or I just rather eat them cold. *chuckle*
What a funny post. :-) I like it.
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Thank you Raani. Yeah, I think we’re gonna stay with cold eggs from now on. Or maybe keep ’em to 5 seconds. :)
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Hilarious! I love exploding eggs in the microwave although cleaning up is not much fun :-)
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I hadn’t thought about doing it on purpose since I was 9 years old. You’ve inspired me anew, Twoblackdoggies. :)
Thank you for the comment!
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I knew from the title that that had ex-plo-cion (said with spanish accent) all over it. Why not just a quick hit of boiling water? Who am I to talk? We put the cooked eggs in the fridge as well and never eat them.
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I think my wife was being impatient AND overconfident. She didn’t want to wait for the water to heat up. :)
Thank you for reading and commenting, Kathleen. Keep up the great work with your own blog too!
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Thanks!
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You got off lucky. My fiance put a bunch of sliced grapes in the microwave once “for science”. The resulting plasma explosion left me cleaning grape skins and bits of microwave from the scorched hole in the wall for the next two weeks.
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Haw haw haw haw haw! Oh man. Tell me you took pictures! :)
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Wow, I never would have even thought about reheating an egg, but now I know not to go over 5 seconds. But it makes a good story, right? :)
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I wouldn’t do it either, David. Sounded risky right from the start. :)
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absolutely brilliant. Just found this blog last week – kept me entertained all week. Great insight into all things German for someone like me who hopes to move to be with my German partner, sooner rather than later. Love your humour!
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That’s awesome, Chris! Thank you for reading and commenting!
Are you living in Germany? Your use of the words ‘brilliant’ and ‘humour’ suggest somewhere in the UK… :)
Have a fantastic day and please visit us again soon!
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I know my comment will be offtopic…but…I’m carrying this for a looooooong time. Try the TV series “Pastewka” in german. It’s allways said that germans have a lack on good humor. Have a look, in my opinion it is nearly darker than the english humor…
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Ooo! What is Pastewka about? Can it be found online?
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indeed. http://kinox.to/Stream/Pastewka.html
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Great delivery! I laughed out loud.
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Thank you Isaac! Glad to hear it!
Great blog you got there!
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indeed. http://kinox.to/Stream/Pastewka.html
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That last picture made me laugh so hard!
A similar thing happened to my friends who decided to bake a cake. They put all the ingredients in a bowl THEN decided that the butter they used wasn’t soft enough, put the entire bowl in the microwave and ended up with a sort of curdled scrambled egg with cake mixture…and they STILL tried baking it.
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Oh God, that sounds awful… and yet, delicious. :)
Thank you for reading and commenting Bedeviledfeline! Have a great weekend!
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Oh dear.
Haven’t we all been tempted to go that little bit further in the microwave when we know we shouldn’t or when we hear the inevitable: Boom!
‘Hopefully “no animals were injured in the making of this egg.”
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Haw! Totally.
Thank you for reading and commenting, British Berliner! How’re things on the east side?
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I thought she’d done this on purpose. You know, just to see what would happen. :D Loved your audio description, still giggling. Who had to clean up the mess?
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Haw haw! Glad you liked it, Sandra. Any my wife had to clean up her own mess. :)
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What a great post, thanks for sharing.
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My Dad has done this before, it was even better when he tried to convince my brothers and I that you could cook an egg totally in a microwave. If you get that right it comes out the microwave and then explodes when you stick a fork in it, and boiling egg hits the ceiling. :D
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Awesome
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I am very surprised Germans are normally very used to things that explode.Yours faithfully Basil Fawlty.
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Will the microwave work after this happens? Will it be safe to use the microwave?
Really worried.
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Still safe to use. Eggs get a little nervous around it though.
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