Wanted: Appliance / household wiring experts

[Glinda]

I have a crazy household mystery that's bugging me, and because we have so many clever, creative "how to design it/make it/fix it" types in our midst who love figuring out what makes things tick, I humbly bring this mystery to you and ask for your insight.

Note that there are several bits of evidence to consider. Here we go . . .

1. I left the house to do two pet sitting jobs around 3:15 this afternoon. I returned at about 4:40. When I opened the front door, I could smell hot wiring and there was an electronic or appliance buzzer screaming somewhere in the house. I raced into the kitchen to find my huge, ancient microwave oven in full coronary arrest. The machine was on, full throttle, and multiple lights on the keypad were lit; none of them would work to my touch, though.

I yanked the power cord from the outlet and opened the oven door. It was very hot in there, but nothing had caught fire. I left the door open until the whole thing cooled off. Then I plugged it in and tested it. Seems to work fine.

1a. This microwave - an "MGA Mitsubishi Electric, Magnatronic Range" - is approximately 50 years old. I only use it to defrost food, because my modern (much smaller) microwave insists on knowing how much the food weighs, and then shutting down every minute or two to force me to turn the food around in the oven for even thawing, and then un-pause it. Fuck that shit. My old MGA defrosts like a champ and it don't need a helping hand every few minutes to do its friggin' job, FFS.

I searched everywhere for a photo of this microwave - this was the closest I got. Note that my machine doesn't have the programmable recipe card option.

2. My kitchen garbage can sits at the base of a counter about three feet from the microwave discussed above. The can was dumped over and rummaged through; obviously my lunatic kitten did this (little fucker). The question is, could he have jumped on the counter and touched the microwave keypad which caused it to beep and light up and begin cooking, which in turn scared the cat, which jumped off the counter, knocking over the garbage can? Or is the trash-digging cat completely unrelated to the microwave meltdown?

3. After setting things to rights in the kitchen, I walked down the hall to my bedroom and noticed that my digital clock on my night stand was flashing on and off. It does this when the electricity goes out, even if it's just a very brief hiccup in the power.

Walked through the house to reset my other clocks. The only other clock that needed to be reset was an identical digital clock in the living room that sits next to the TV. The stove clock and the clock for the more modern microwave (above the stove) were both correct. These two clocks only ever need to be reset if the power is off for more than 60 seconds or so.

So. Did my elderly microwave just fritz out on its own? Did the power blip out for a second and cause the microwave to spaz out? Did the overheated microwave (who knows HOW long it was going at full blast?!) cause the house power to short out? Did the cat set off the microwave which blipped out the power? Was it aliens?

Any and all ideas are welcome!