Friday, February 16, 2007

More Tales of Dormy Wonder


Dorm Boy David had a couple of CDs hanging on his bedroom wall as decoration. I didn't question this interior design idea. Firstly, because I have no sense of style myself. None. You would believe this if you could see my house. Secondly, because the dorm boys have a notoriously terrible sense of style.

My husband and I made a sad and misguided attempt to decorate the boys' lobby our first year here. We repainted the walls (which were dreadful) and bought several M.C. Escher posters to hang. (With magnets. All the doors and walls are metal.) The boys promptly added their own personal touch. Specifically, four or five hubcaps, (suspended from the ceiling with fishing line at various semi-strategic spots against the wall and front windows) several emblems from old vehicles, and a grill from a pickup truck, suspended over the door to the kitchen. They were so proud of themselves. I left it all up. Why bother?

So when David had several extremely beat-up (I thought) CDs hanging on his bedroom walls I just figured it was the newest trend in testosteronic fashion, and left it at that. Being young and stupid, it never occurred to me to question why they had such an awful lot of lines and cracks all over them. Finally, at the end of the year, I smelled a suspicious smoke smell (Again. See rules 4, 8, 11 and 12) out in the lobby and decided I'd better go check it out. (Again)
"All right! What are you guys burning out here now!?"
A young innocent dorm lad looked up at me and said,
"Oh that was just Dave. He microwaved another CD."
As you can imagine, I went through all those motherly stages of confusion, disbelief, shock, and then. . no, it didn't get all the way to anger. Mostly just confusion and shock. When I questioned young innocent David, (Who, by the way, was responsible for rules 1,2,4 and 13. Not exclusively, but mostly) he said that it made a really cool pattern, and then when you let the sun shine on them, it reflected light all over the room in interesting ways. Okay, while that's very creative, surprisingly aesthetic and probably true. . .
"YOU CAN'T PUT CDS IN THE MICROWAVE!!"
"Why?"
"I don't know. You just can't!"
"Why?"
"Woman's intuition! The big sparks and crackling flame noises! I just refuse to believe it's good for the microwave. And it's not your microwave. Stop!"
He wasn't happy about it, but he stopped. Boys, I tell you what. . .

5 comments:

Scribbit said...

That's funny--kind of an industrial look rather? Maybe they're just very hip to the in stuff.

Anonymous said...

ha, that's new. cd's in the microwave?

Eshtemoa said...

Hmmmm -I'll have to try that :-)

JAM said...

Most CDs are a micro-thin layer of aluminum foil (or gold for the archival type CDs), sandwiched between two layers of plastic. Really cheap CDs just have a layer of aluminum on top of one layer of plastic and don't last long.

Metal in a microwave is still a bad idea, even after all these years. Putting a CD in there and cooking it is not very different than trying to heat a plate of leftovers with a sheet of foil still covering the plate.

My youngest daughter keeps burning popcorn really, really thoroughly in our microwave, leaving a strong burnt smell. A good cleaning and disinfecting helps, but boiling a cup of vinegar and letting it steam the inside of the microwave, and then taking it out and wiping it down while still damp takes out most of the smell.

Kids.

bluemountainmama said...

i love these stories about your "boys"- hilarious! i'm sure every day is a grand adventure!