There's this girl, her name is Alexandra. She whines a lot. Too much in fact. (actually, any whining at all is too much, but that goes without saying, so when when I say that she whines too much, what I really mean is she whines entirely too much. I just wanted you to know I was not merely restating the obvious. Did you get all that?) Anyway, this chick, Alexandra, (we call her Alex, as will you if you ever meet her) Alex had an interview at this store in the mall. I live at Northeasern University. It is right near The Prudential Center Mall. Alex, in her infinite wisdom, decided that she should work at the Cambridgeside Galleria, which is clear across the city.

(Here's where the whining part comes in) "I have an interview at the Cambridgeside Galeria," she whined, "Would go with me?" I'm a nice guy, so I said yes. And we went to the mall. We had to take the train, and while waiting for the train I realized that I had a pocketful of Speare Dining Hall silverware.

"Isn't that a little like stealing?" you may say to yourself. Isn't twenty thousand dollars a year for tuition a little like stealing? Anyway, I was waiting for the train to go to the mall when this irrational fear came over me. What if my pocketful of silverware were to set of some theft detection thing at one of the stores? So we decided to have ourselves a little experiment in human nature. I left the silverware under the bench at the train station. Would people take silverware that they found on the street? Would they use it when they got home? So we left the silverware there and decided to see if it was there when we got back.

The train came and we were off to the mall. We got there about fifteen minutes before Alex's interview. We went to Suncoast Motion Picture Company. We looked at James Dean posters and stuff, and she whined at me about how I should buy her a Star Trek poster and stuff, and I wanted to leave. But I politely took the continuos abuse. Eventually it was time for her interview and I said I was going to look around in Lechmere. (I just bought a toaster, and I was thinking maybe a microwave would be a good idea, too. My goal is independance from the Speare Dining Hall)

I looked at the CDs for a little bit, hoping to find a Lechmere bargain, and avoiding going straight for the microwaves. Why I hesitated, I don't know. And then I looked at them (the microwaves). The first one that caught my eye was slightly bigger than my parents microwave. Six Hundred Dollars! I was scared. I nearly started to cry, as the prospect of I microwave slowly slipped through my fingers. Then I saw it, a seventy dollar microwave. It was about as big as a lunchbox, and it had a dial (instead of punching in the time). There's a word for microwaves like that, and the word is Stone-aged. Turning the dial to cook your food? The very thought was frightening. What if you need to cook something for thirty seconds. Lets say you are warming up a sandwich. Forty seconds would make the roll entirely too chewy. And I don't know if you've ever used one of those relics of the past with a dial on it, but there is no way to set it just right so you know it will cook for exactly thiry seconds.

Then, I saw the glimmering light at the end of the tunnel. $99.99 microwave, digital, and it even had one of those carosel things that makes your food dizzy. And then, to avoid being a compusive shopper, I paced around in the CD section again to consider my purchase. Then Alex came back from her interview. "That was quick," I said.

"Yeah," she said, "I just dropped off my resume and answered a couple of questions and she said she'd call back."

"You should call her," I said, "Show some aggression."

"Yeah, maybe," she said, borderline whining. "So what are you looking at?"

"I was maybe possibly considering buying a microwave," I said with slick undertones.

"Yeah ZACH! Get a Microwave! We could have so much fun if you had a microwave!" I was impressed by her excitement, but I dreaded the thought of her having one more excuse to come harass me in my own room. She already calls and whines, "Zach, I wanna come over and watch Top Gun." Now she could whine, "Zach, I wanna come make microwave popcorn, and we could watch Top Gun." And would she bring popcorn? No, she'd just expect me to have it.

I showed her the model I was looking at, and she grew even more excited. I started to feel like we were a married couple, looking for furnishings for our new house. I am completely vulnerable to doing things that big people do. No really I am. I fantasize about worrying about how I am going to pay the mortgage. I think it has to do with hearing about how mature my friends say they've become at other colleges, and I feel exactly the same as the day I graduated from high school. Did you follow that? I feel immature.

From the aspect of getting my first major appliance, buying a microwave seemed a little more exciting. Wait, I thought to myself, I know what big people do, they go to more than one store to make sure they were getting the best value for their major purchase. "Let's go look at Sears, too," I said, "just to be sure that this is the best microwave we can get for the money." Some how I wasn't buying a microwave, we were buying a microwave. (Alex made this little change in the discusion, not me. Perhaps she was having the same dilusions that we were a married couple) And off to Sears we went.

At Sears, Alex showed me the blanket that she almost bought when she was at the mall in the beginning of the year. I don't know why, I certainly didn't care which blanket she bought and which she didn't. I've been to her place, and I don't remember what the blanket looked like. But I didn't complain, because she would start whining about how I didn't care about her blanket. Okay I complained a little bit, and she whined a little bit, and then we went to look at the microwaves. Looking back I realize that she needed to look at the blankets like I needed to look at the CDs. I forgive her.

On to bigger and better things. I saw nearly the same model for the same price, except it was the Sears brand (Kenmore, for the more provincial minds that may be reading this) And, the Sears model had something special on it. A popcorn button. When I wanted to make popcorn, I just put in the bag and hit the button. This is exciting stuff. Of course we were so excited that we had to look around before we decided to make the purchase. We looked at refrigeretors. Tell me Alex wasn't into this "married couple" thing, too. So anyway, we looked at a couple of refrigerators. We saw one with a tap, for holding a keg in your very own bar, and Alex said Jamie would be making his orgasm sound if he saw it. Jamie is my drinking buddy. And we finally got back around to looking for a sales person for assistance with the purchase.

This is where the microwave story gets exciting. The guy was dumb as a bag of wet mice. He wasn't quite sure how to run the register. Whenever there was like a gap where he was trying to figure it out, he'd tell me about the waranty or something. Finally he asked me if I was going to use my Searscharge. I don't have one of those. I asked him "Is there a discount if I open a charge account?" There was. Five dollars. I saved money, and gained another card for my truly adult wallet. I now have two Visa cards, two calling cards, a gas card, an ATM card, a photocopy card (for the Northeasern Library) a college ID, my liscense, a checkbook, pictures of my loved ones, and now, a Searscharge. I am a man. And I saved five dollars. I really knew what I was doing, too. I asked the sales guy what interest rate was and stuff. I had my liscense and Visa card ready as I filled out the application. I was becoming part of the American way. I told you this was exciting. But here's the best part. When the transaction was done, I asked him where I should go to pick it up, and he directed me to Merchandise Pickup.

I walked into Merchandise Pickup, gave her my receipt, and waited patiently with my pseudo-wife in the waiting room for them to bring it out. There I was, waiting for my first major appliance. I was a man. A man in debt. Could anything be better? Alex and I discussed manliness, and she told me that she felt like she was my wife when we were picking out the microwave and all kinds of stuff like that, and then we thought about carrying the thing back on the subway and sneaking it into the dorm. Yes, I am the owner of a illegal microwave.

The major appliance finally came, and we left. Of course I got my receipt back from the lady in the window, in case anything wnet wrong with the microwave. And I carried the little token of my manhood back to my home in Speare Hall. It was a joyous occasion, and in all the excitement, we totally forgot to see if the silverware was still there.


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