July 4, 2025: Independence Day Egg

In the olden days, before our sneaky-leaky dishwasher slowly ruined our kitchen floor from below, and we fell into the abyss of renovation, my pal came to visit. The guest room in her house is lovely, so I asked her to let me know if there were small things I could do to improve ours. As she was leaving, she said, Yes, two things would help: a charging station for phones, and a better reading light near the bed. And then, casually, she added, “And if you ever decide to upgrade your kitchen appliances, you could get a new microwave.”

I gasped at her effrontery. Did I ASK about anything but the guest room? I did not. And what did she have against our blameless microwave? 

She said it was huge, took up too much counter space, and it was twice as slow as anything on the market today. I retorted that, being retired, we have sixty seconds to spare. 

The microwave is 40 years old. It was a gift from my sweet mother-in-law, intended to help us heat up bottles when our daughter was born. It is the size of a suitcase, and not a suitcase you could carry on.

In fact, I spent part of Independence Day taking hero shots of it, just to show off its impressive size to you. The egg is there for scale, though the photo still doesn’t quite capture the proportions.

The egg is also there because we are living with a makeshift basement kitchen of sink, fridge, and microwave. And today, I wanted a soft-boiled egg. I wanted it with a Rapunzel-like intensity. I wanted it cooked in the shell, now, and I was determined to make it in the microwave, because, come on, you can boil water in a microwave, so … it oughta work.

So I Googled. And the results came back (as they do now) with an AI summary* first, and then some real links. 

AI said: DO NOT TRY TO SOFT BOIL AN EGG IN ITS SHELL IN THE MICROWAVE.  It was very clear about this. And then all the following links and videos said: Here’s how to do it. 

Some of them wanted you to nuke your egg on high, for a short time. Others recommended low power, slowly. Some insisted you put the egg in a bowl of salt water, while others cautioned that it had to be salt water WITH BAKING SODA, or else disaster would strike. The suggestions came from recipe sites, from Reddit, and from advice sites with names like ReliableMomHacks.  

So I ignored the AI. 

It's the fourth of July, and that was my act of American rebellion, on Independence Day. No to AI that I never asked for! No to detention centers, and Medicaid cuts, and billionaires! Yes to Reliable Moms!

My egg came out fine, though I cooked it (in a bowl of salt water) somewhat longer than the recipe indicated. I'm retired. I have an extra sixty seconds. 

*Yes, I've been told how to kill off those initial AI summaries, but it didn’t work. I'll try again another day.