You gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em...

So, Elaine and I decided to buy a new microwave over Christmas. We have had the same mw that I had in college (going on about 11 years old). I won it at prom my senior year of high school (I think). Anyways, with my new job and our transition to being real adults we bought a higher level mw from Panasonic via Target.com.

Here is a very poor picture of the MW

 We got it shipped to us, opened it up and it worked like a charm....for 4 days. Then, one night when we were steaming a bag of broccoli (because we are super healthy like that), it started smoking from the back. Not like a little smoke, like, "I was sure it was on fire" smoke. We had not put anything metal in it and had used it as per the manual.

Elaine and I said,"no big deal, we will return it and get a new one." However, Panasonic did not see it this way. When we called them, they seemed skeptical that their product could break. After Elaine spent several hours with them on the phone, they finally agreed to pay for us to ship it back to them, not to return it but to inspect it. They also, told us that it may be quicker to just take it back to Target and exchange it.

We had an ethical dilemma. Really, it is Panasonic's mw that is defective and they should have to replace it. Also, I almost threw water on the microwave when it started smoking. Now, I am not the smartest person on the planet, but I have a feeling I would have gotten shocked had I attempted that fix. I think Panasonic should know that their product is defective and could potentially harm people. We also felt a little abused and mistreated in the return process (first world problems).

So, Elaine and I decided to go through Panasonic. You know, to prove a point to them. Then, after we were mailed the info on how to ship our product to Panasonic, we decided it was too much work. After a brief discussion we decided what we really wanted was to be able to cook things in a convenient fashion and the fastest way to get this done was to go to Target and exchange the product. So, we did.

Target was great! We got a new microwave. I think it is fun to be stubborn and prove a point, at times. However, I think there is also a point when you have to ask yourself, "what am I really attempting to accomplish here?" At this point, we wanted to be able to cook food in a microwave and we accomplished that in a far less time consuming manner than if we had "done battle" with Panasonic. Gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

A poor picture of our new microwave

The kicker to all this....I loved the microwave so much (except for the smoking part), we got another Panasonic. I am a little ashamed of myself on that. Oh, well.