How to clean your microwave

I was cleaning the kitchen earlier (shocker - I know!) and I decided that the microwave could use some attention. I opened it, gave a couple of half-hearted swipes at the caked on messes, and remembered that there was something about water and vinegar and no scrub cleaning, so I sat down at my handy-dandy laptop to look up this magic cleaning solution. In addition to a fascinating scientific explanation of why liquids superheat in a microwave and the dangers therein, I found a large number of tips using water, vinegar, soda, dishwashing liquid, 3 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. Combining that fascinating research with my own dizzying intellect, here's my version of how to clean your microwave.

1. Find a small microwave-safe bowl, preferably plastic and old enough to be kinda rough on the inside to avoid the superheating thing. Because I am all about keeping my readers safe.

2. Fill the bowl with an appropriate amount of water and tea bags. (I used about 4 cups of water and 4 tea bags.)

3. Place it in the microwave and heat for 4 minutes. Don't worry about those metal staples because for some reason they don't spark and cause fires. Kind weird.

4. While the water is heating, add sugar to a tea pitcher. (My pitcher was gallon-sized and I used an unmentionable amount of sugar.)

5. Allow the bowl of water and tea bags to remain in the microwave for another minute or so after the timer beeps.

6. Remove bowl and contents from microwave.

7. Wipe down the microwave with whatever rag is handy, remarking out loud how amazing it is that all that caked on mess just wipes right off.

8. Remove the tea bags from the bowl and pour the tea-i-fied water into the pitcher with the sugar.

9. Stir vigorously while filling the pitcher the rest of the way up with cold water.

10. Enjoy a nice tall glass of iced tea as a reward for all your hard labor.

Now wasn't that better than using vinegar?