Your food is ready.

Poor microwave. You're just not the smartest appliance in the kitchen, are you?

Sure, you possess the unique power to cause molecule gyration, creating friction and heating food up by crazy alien magic (or so it seems).

But it's impossible to ignore your sad little foibles. Like the fact that your timer doesn't have an off option. Or that your handle is falling apart and can cut fingers if gripped in the wrong spot.

And that you always announce with a ignorantly chipper beep, "Your food is ready."

Because, dear sweet dumb microwave, we don't always use you for food.

Granted, hot tea is potable and therefore ingestible, it's not food. A food item perhaps, but not food.

So when I want my steamy mug of green tea and you say, "Your food is ready," I always pause and think, "There's no food to be ready."

And it's not always edibles that go in the microwave. When I'm heating up leg wax and you proclaim to the household that the food is ready, I worry about you, microwave. Because no one in their right mind would call leg wax food. Yet you seem to think it's appropriate to spread on crackers and toast.

There's another fallacy to your logic. Even if you're heating food, it's not always ready when the countdown is over. Many items require repositioning and reheating. Sometimes up to three rounds of changes. And each time, you sing, "Your food is ready," and I get resentful. Because my macaroni is still ice in the center and I know it's going to be another four minutes after I've poked holes in something, or transferred dishes, or stabbed the cheesy cube a few times.

Microwave, at times like that, your proclamation isn't just ill informed. It's downright rude.

We need to work on your announcement, microwave. Perhaps you should say, "I am shutting off."

Or, "Thank you for using me instead of the toaster oven."

Or a simple, "Have a nice day."

I will give you one acclamation, microwave. You spelled your correctly. So I suppose your odd sentence can slide. For now.