Move Over, Uri Geller

Sometime in the 1970s, a young guy named Uri Geller got a lot of press for his apparent ability to bend spoons with the power of his mind, never touching them with his hands. He was famous.

I might have done him one better today. I managed to break the unbreakable--a Corelle plate. I didn't use my hands to do it. I didn't drop it on the floor, either. But I''m not likely to get famous.

As I have done hundreds of times before, today I placed two corn tortillas on a dry paper towel on a plate, then covered them with a damp paper towel. I set the microwave for 30 seconds and began to rub my hands in anticipation of warm, soft corn tortillas with cheese. I was so enchanted with my vision that it took a second or two for my brain to register what was right in front of my eyes. My microwave was flashing like lightning in a far-off cloud bank. Or maybe a the embers of a dying fire. I couldn't fathom what I was seeing. I knew there was no metal on that plate; it didn't even have metalized trim. It couldn't be metal--maybe my microwave was leaving this life in a blaze of glory! I hit the "off button" and opened the door.

After the wisps of smoke cleared, I saw that my tortillas were pretty badly burned around the edges. I considered eating them anyway. (What? I was tired!) I decided against the Cajun-blackened-tortilla opportunity, sat the plate on the counter and removed the paper towels and tortillas. At the exact second I found half of a burnt metal twisty-tie tangled in one of the paper towels, a big "Crack!" noise made both my dog and me jump.

Bemused (as usual), I scanned the counter for the source of the mystery sound. Once again, my brain had trouble interpreting the image it was receiving from my eyeballs. Why was my plate split down the middle? And what was that big white sliver between the two pieces? And look, there's the other half of the twisty-tie, melted onto the shiny white Corelle!

Yeah, I eventually figured it out. Probably would've figured it out sooner if the dog could speak English--or wasn't hiding under the table.

I've learned two things from this: 1) Take tortillas out of the bag they come in as soon as I get them, put them in a zip lock bag, and throw away the twisty tie! 2) Uri Geller could have impressed a lot more people if he'd used a microwave.