COLUMN: Microwave Mask

I have reached an age where I am absolutely, positively, inarguably an adult. Frankly, I still don't believe it.

The facts, however, are not on my side. As much as I try to ignore them, there are hairs growing from my head that are NOT brown in color. I'm getting junk mail from the AARP. My weekends were once spent DJing to dancefloors full of my friends. These days, I'm more likely DJing to dancefloors full of the CHILDREN of my friends. Some of my classmates are (shudder) grandparents. This is scary stuff.

There's no denying my adult status. I suppose this is an impressive achievement, seeing as how I've made it this far without having ANY earthly clue what I'm doing. Let's be real: I'm almost fifty years old and still wear Velcro because I can't keep my shoes tied for longer than a half hour. I'm THAT cool.

But for a while now, I've been starting to feel downright mature. I've been adulting pretty hard lately. I've almost got my credit cards paid off. I've prepared meals consisting of more ingredients than peanut butter and/or jelly. 2020 might be terrible, but at the very least it's led me to curb my spending habits somewhat. After all, it's tough to impulse buy when you're too afraid to step into a store.

But just when I thought I had this adult stuff figured out, last week confirmed it's still a wonder I can even dress myself in the mornings. (And let's be honest, yesterday I looked down and realized I was wearing one blue sock and one black sock. My dressage skills are still iffy at best.)

Last Friday night started out okay. I'd arrived home from work, made dinner, thrown in a load of laundry, and was preparing to head out for another exciting evening of DJing to kids half my age. 

As you know if you read my column on the regular, I am very much pro-mask. 

Wait, let me take that back. I'm not pro-mask. I don't sit around going, "YAY! WE'RE SO LUCKY TO WEAR MASKS EVERYWHERE WE GO! IT'S SUPER FUN!"

Masks aren't fun. They're not enjoyable to wear. I'm not pro-mask. I am, however, pro-science. I'm not going to engage in the nation's endless argument on the efficacy of masks. Let's just say I've seen enough empirical evidence to agree with most major medical organizations that masks help people stay safe. My mind's made up just as yours likely is, whichever side of the cootie-riddled fence you're on.

There's no way I'm setting foot inside a nightclub without masking up, so with fifteen minutes to spare, Responsible Mature Adult Shane went down to the basement to grab a clean mask out of the dryer. There was just one problem. It turned out Responsible Mature Adult Shane had transferred the laundry to the dryer and then, apparently, completely checked out. Maybe I saw a squirrel. I don't know what on Earth distracted me, but somehow I had forgotten to push the start button on the dryer. Every mask I owned was in a soggy pile.

But that's no insurmountable obstacle for Adult Shane. No, sir. Adult Shane is a creative problem-solver. With all the confidence and know-how of my 49 years of wisdom, I grabbed a soggy mask, headed upstairs, looked around to make sure no one in my empty house was watching, and tossed it in the microwave.

On paper, this still seems like a solid plan. When water heats, it turns to steam and evaporates. That's all a dryer really does, right? It just blows some hot air around and evaporates the moisture in the clothes. A microwave should just speed up the process, no? I figured two minutes of nuking would be enough to get things steamy, so I left the microwave to its pleasant hum and ran into the bedroom to change for the gig. But when I stepped OUT of the bedroom, the hum coming from the microwave had turned somewhat less pleasant.

That's because the microwave was on fire. I had forgotten one important thing about my soggy little mask: it had one of those bendy whatzits to keep snug around your nose. And that little bendy whatzit was, I quickly learned, a copper wire. Copper is an especially good conductor and an especially bad thing to microwave should one NOT want to burn down one's kitchen.

I opened the microwave to put out the fire, which sent a ball of charred smoke directly into my smoke detector, setting it off. The detectors in my house are monitored by my home security system, which suddenly sprang to life and informed me via prerecorded message that it was sending the fire department to my house. So there I was, standing in my kitchen, trying to scoop up a flaming mask with a plastic spatula while the smoke detector blared, the security system was helpfully flashing a strobe light, and I was trying to explain to a 911 operator that emergency services were far less needed than a life coach at that precise moment.

Oh, and did I mention I was NAKED? Like, COMPLETELY naked? I was just starting to change when I heard the microwave go wonky, so I ran to the kitchen 100% sans clothing. As it turns out, Adult Shane might be capable of dressing himself in the morning, but at night all bets are clearly off.

I did manage to avoid both burning down the house and/or ending up on a docket for indecent exposure, so I'm taking that as a win. My microwave appears to still be functional; the mask considerably less so. Not only is half of it smoldering ash, but my little experiment also managed to fuse a rogue piece of macaroni directly into the fabric. It's now an art piece I'm tempted to never throw away.

So adulting is still a work in progress. But were it not for constant failure, I wouldn't be able to provide helpful bachelor tips, such as: If you forget to turn your clothes dryer on, do NOT microwave your masks. Trust me, results may vary.