Preheat the
Microwave.Com
by Jerry Guarino
Instead of complaining
about old people, Lisa decided to make lemonade.
She got the idea during a visit to her
grandmother. “Nana, what do you want for
dinner?” she said.
“There’s some
chicken in the freezer, Lisa. That would be good.”
Nana filled a plastic measuring cup with water
and put it in the microwave, set the timer to
three minutes and pressed start.
“I can make your tea,
Nana. You relax and watch your show.”
Nana put her hand on Lisa’s
arm. “No dear. You have to preheat the
microwave.” Lisa paused silently, realizing
that her grandmother was completely serious.
So Lisa made a deal with
the maintenance guy to put hidden cameras and
audio bugs in and around her Nana’s elderly
housing apartments, in the dining room, laundry
room and in the elevator. They created an
Internet site, Preheat the Microwave.Com.
“Oh Mike, this will be so funny” she
said touching his arm. If Lisa and Mike weren’t
married to others, this might have been the start
of something. “These old timers never go on
the Internet and we’re not going to use any
names. Besides, I checked with a lawyer and he
said there’s no problem.”
Unit 204: “Where’s
the remote control?” said Sam.
“Here, eat your
oatmeal dear,” said his wife Alice.
“My show is coming on
and I need the remote.”
“Look, I left the
lumps in, just like you like it.”
“What lumps? I don’t
want lumps in my oatmeal. Lumps are for cream of
wheat!”
Alice watched Sam search
for the remote. “Did you take your medicine
dear?”
Sam poked his oatmeal with
a spoon. “How do you make lumps in oatmeal
anyway? Are these raisins or something?” A
bell rings from the kitchen. “Phone”
said Sam.
“No, that’s the
bread I’m baking dear. The lumps are fiber,
they’re good for you.”
Sam reaches into the seat
cushion. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”
As he shifts, the television starts up. “See,
it went on.” A telephone from the show rings.
“Alice, the phone is still ringing.”
“That’s the TV
dear, eat your oatmeal.”
Sam finds the remote.
“Ha, got it. I don’t want lumps of
fiber, I want lumps of cream of wheat.” The
doorbell rings. “Alice, please get the phone!”
Alice walks to the door.
“That’s the doorbell dear. Eat your
oatmeal. The doctor said it’s good for you.
Oh, hi Cathy. What brings you here?”
Cathy peeks in at Sam.
“Hi Sam. I just wanted to tell you guys, the
movie tonight is supposed to be ‘R’
rated!”
Alice giggles. “R, how
about that? OK, see you there. Sam did you hear
that?”
Sam strains to get out of
his chair. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
The Laundry Room:
Ralph was doing the laundry for his wife. He put
her clothes and detergent in the washer, turned
the temperature dial to hot and waited. When they
were done, he put them in the dryer and sat
reading the sports page. Bzzz. Clothes were dry.
“I told her I could do laundry.” He
folded the red dress and pink underwear, put it
in the cart and headed back to the apartment.
The Dining Room: A
conspiracy theory was going around that the
serving lady didn’t like short people. One
of the smaller residents compared her meal to the
others. “See, your fish is twice as big as
mine. And you have more vegetables too.”
Her dining companions
looked at her sympathetically. A man replied,
“I have the chicken with rice.”
The Elevator:
Margaret pulled her vacuum cleaner while carrying
her laundry basket. She walked into the elevator
and pressed one for the laundry room.
Unfortunately, the cord for the vacuum cleaner
had come undone as she walked. A few seconds
later Margaret heard a whipping sound, the cord
catching between the elevator and the floor she
had left. The vacuum cleaner started to bounce up
and down from the tension. She took refuge in the
corner until the elevator stopped.
Juan, a San Francisco
policeman, found the bugs when visiting his mom;
the prints came back to Lisa, so he got a techie
to reverse the signal on the camera and audio bug,
along with a transmitter and placed it in Nana’s
apartment. The wireless signal was then sent to a
police surveillance website.
The tenants were gathering
to watch the movie. “Who is this, Clara?”
“Oh, this is my
grandson Jeffrey,” said Clara.
“What do you do dear?”
Jeffrey said, “I’m
an attorney.”
After he walked away, Clara
whispered. “It’s sad, he thinks he’s
a lawyer, but he just got released from the psych
unit at Stanford.”
With Nana upstairs at the
movie, Lisa arranged to meet Mike at her
apartment to look at some of the videos. Lisa
pulled up the website and selected her favorite.
“This is great, I still can’t believe
that vacuum cleaner clip,” she said laughing.
The laughter turned to passion and Mike grabbed
Lisa and pulled her to him. Lisa yielded eagerly
and within minutes their clothes were off and
they were on the living room floor.
But somehow the router in
the building picked up the video signal. In the
community room where the residents had gathered
to watch the movie, Mike and Lisa were now on the
big screen. Suddenly, dozens of elderly citizens
were being treated to an X-rated show, with Mike
the maintenance guy in a leading role!
“This is ‘R’
rated,” said Ralph. “What’s the
name of this movie? I want to get the DVD.”
One of the dining room
staff even walked around with refreshments.
“Would you like some lemonade?”
An elderly woman reached
over and said, “Do you have any popcorn?”
The cook said, “In a
minute, we’re preheating the microwave.”
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