Three Seconds

It was the microwave situation when it came down to it
It was her way with the microwave that really got to him
She simply couldn't bring herself to press the stop button
Preferring instead, as the timer counted down, to pull the door open

She had the puzzling but unerring habit
Of interrupting the microwave's operation
With just a few seconds to spare on the digital timer
0:02 or, more typically, 0:03 seconds, unblinking
Stark numbers would stare at you from the control panel

He grew increasingly infuriated at the countdown idiosyncrasy
Destabilized, as he was, by the tension of those last remaining seconds
Of late, he noticed that she had even taken to leaving the display stuck at 0:01
Virtuosity in her timing that upped the ante of dismay

Why leave just a few seconds on the clock? It made no sense
Did she really need to heat things up for 57 seconds?
Why not wait for the satisfaction of the final beeps?
Defrost for 28 instead of 30 seconds? What was her issue?
Was it an aversion to hearing the beeping microwave?
An aural infirmity or a baroque superstition?

She never said anything about it, ignorance was bliss
It's the small things that get to you, that you start to notice
The way someone squeezes the toothpaste tube, all those things
But the microwave situation was, quite simply, confounding
The tension of those last few seconds that left you hanging

Still, love is blindness, he decided to take it as an omen
A saving grace, this eccentricity of never pressing the stop button
He made his peace with the strange legacy of those three seconds
Comforted that it would always be around midnight in their kitchen

Three Seconds, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Three Seconds by Oliver Nelson
• Hanging on a String by Loose Ends
• Never Stop by Brand New Heavies
• Digital Display by Ready for the World
• The Control Panel by Richard Yost
• Microwave Blues by Ralph Lalama
• Clocks by Coldplay
• A Few Seconds by Loiseau
• Just a Little Bit Longer by Maxi Priest
• 'Round Midnight by Thelonious Monk
• Things That Annoy Me A Bit by Scott Sandwich
  Concluding with a spoken word piece to destabilize things

[Update]

Apparently some even see this deviance as a game these days

File under: life, Small Things, culture, observation, humour, perception, relationships, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 17, 2022