My mouth watered for a supper of spaghetti and meatballs. Then tragedy struck.

The microwave oven conked out.

I was horrified. Terrified. Even a bit stupefied.

What was I supposed to do now? Cook?

Who even remembers the recipe for boiling water on a stove?

I’d had the microwave for only 18 years. I have shirts older than that. Check photos from 20 years ago, maybe 30. Most of those shirts don’t fit anymore, but they aren’t on the fritz. Frayed and frazzled, maybe, but not fritzed.

But find a photo of my kitchen from two decades ago and you’ll notice that microwave ovens don’t last me nearly as long as fabric, seams and buttons.

I’d never owned a microwave until I went to college and my roommate brought one with him. Technically, I didn’t own that one either. It soon owned me. Before long, we even heated up our daily rations of Pop-Tarts in the microwave. The toaster became a crumb-covered decoration.

Just like toasters, laptops and cable TV, the microwave became one more thing that didn’t exist when I was kid that we consider necessities now. Except cable TV. That’s been washed down the streaming stream.

I loved cooking and baking when we were a family of four. So did my family — unless they found out the ingredients.

“You made meatballs out of tuna fish?”

“We’re out of hamburger.”

“Why did you season this stuff with bricks?”

“Bricks are adobe, with an E. This is adobo, with an O. It’s a spice.”

“With an O? There’s a spicy idea. I’m throwing some SpaghettiOs in the microwave.”

The microwave was a hindrance to my culinary skills back then. Now, as a grumpy, old widower, I see no point cooking for one when the one is me. Let supper ‘wave.

I planned to write my congressman, perhaps beg some help from FEMA or the Red Cross for aid in this time of crisis. But the bowl of frozen spaghetti and meatballs had begun to thaw.

I kicked on the four-way flashers and zipped to the appliance store.

At the store, I studied the kitchen appliances aisle with care. As long as I had to replace my microwave, and knowing that new toys and gadgets that suddenly we can’t live without pop up all the time, I searched for a model of microwave that would also sort my laundry and calculate my taxes.

Those, the salesman explained, haven’t been invented yet.

“Perhaps if you come back in October, maybe they’ll be a thing. Then you can take it home in your flying car. Or beam it home in your new teleporter.”

The kid thought he was hilarious. But I wouldn’t doubt flying cars, teleporters or microwaved taxes. When I was a boy, Crazy Norman once claimed there’d be a day when people would carry telephones in their pockets and — get this — they’d primarily use them to take pictures. What nonsense.

Now, I’m guessing if microwaved taxes aren’t a can’t-live-without feature by October, they will be by November. I’d bet my flying car on it.

I came home with a microwave that won’t wash my socks, but it does have a setting for bagged popcorn. Not even Crazy Norm predicted that one.

And I finally nuked my bowl of once-frozen spaghetti and meatballs. What once were space-age fantasies have become necessary vices.

Somebody get to work on the taxes feature. I’ll have it with a side of baked potato.

Having to survive a whole afternoon without a microwave has made Burt delirious. Send your wild predictions for future necessities to him at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook. (Remember when we lived quite happily without either email or social media? Seriously, we did.)