More appliances behaving badly

One of the great things about being severely paranoid is that when someone...or something turns on you and tries to kill you, you're rarely surprised. Such is the case with my microwave oven. Some time ago, during one of our many intense thunderstorms, there was a power surge which, like something out of a 1950's comic book, caused my microwave oven to start behaving strangely. For starters, there was the clock and timer. Actually, that was the only thing strange. But this is a picture of what it looks like now. What time is that? I have no idea. It looks like quarter past Klingon to me. This isn't a big deal. I don't rely on that clock anyway and as long as I punch the right buttons in the first place, I don't really need to refer to the timer either. I did accidentally enter 30:00 once when I meant 3:00, which was unfortunate. I figured out there was something wrong before the whole half hour passed but it was still bad. Let's just say that what little soup was still in the bowl when I stopped it was extremely hot.

Anyway, aside from that, things have been fine and we've co-existed nicely. I keep it clean and refrain from putting metallic items in it while it cooks my food and happily marks time in whatever language it speaks now.

However, the other day things took a sinister turn. I took out whatever it was I had been heating up and closed the door. As soon as I did, it started cooking again. That was odd, since the timer had beeped and I thought the cycle had completed. I hit the "STOP" button and nothing happened. I hit it repeatedly. Then I actually hit it a couple times. Still nothing. I opened and closed the door over and over. It still kept right on phantom cooking. Eventually I had to unplug it and that ended it. I still don't know why that happened. I have never heard of microwave ovens behaving independently that way or otherwise displaying signs of developing sentience. It hasn't happened since but it's just one more thing I have to keep an eye on.