I woke up this morning and decided to cook a big, fancy, breakfast for my family: fried eggs, thick sliced bacon, grits whisked in milk, and toast with strawberry preserves. Peacefully, I began the process:
- I poured milk into a pot to simmer on the stove, so it would be ready to cook grits at the end.
- I buttered my bread and left it in the cold toaster oven, to toast right before starting the grits.
- My bacon was in a skillet on low, covered with a screen so grease wouldn’t pop out everywhere.
- I prepared three small relish dishes with a tablespoon of strawberry preserves for the toast.
- I poured most of my bacon grease into a small skillet, setting it on low, to be ready for my eggs.
You might not know it by looking at me but I have a pretty bad temper. I’m harmless, I would never physically hurt anyone but I spend a whole lot of time resisting my first reaction. However, I might fling an entire cooking sheet of wings out into the wilds of my backyard in sheer frustration. That said, most everyone leaves me alone in the kitchen to cook with my music and things are calmly efficient this way.
Sometimes, Kenny and I cook together, but he is really the only one I can share a kitchen with.
So as you may have already guessed, breakfast went way wrong this morning. I had increased the temperature under the bacon, as it was still floppy and white even though it had been cooking since the beginning of time. Then I gave my grits a stir before cracking an egg into the nearby skillet.
That’s about the time the smoke alarm went off and Kenny (whose father was a fireman) materialized with “suggestions”. Smoke alarms already send me into a panic, but add Suggestion Kenny and we are in full blown chaos now, with me hanging on for dear life!
My favorite egg turner is thin, but the handle weighs about a pound, and since I wasn’t able to lay it down just so, it went flying off the stove. Then my grits were bubbling more than they should, even on low, so I tried to give them a quick whisk.. slinging everything over the sides of the pot.
Starting to get a little agitated!
Then the toaster oven ended its cycle, but needed to be reset because the “toast” button doesn’t quite get you there. And Kenny is in the background, making some kind of joke about how I must be trying to burn the bacon, the pan, and the house down.. hee-hee, hoo-hoo.
That’s about the time my entire id shot straight to 11.. it’s one louder, isn’t it..
Long story, short: I will not make the mistake again of trying to love my family in the morning with a meal and they are all scarred from my personal hurricane. I have no business frying eggs in the first place. It’s just not in my wheelhouse and I should never stray from the safety of scrambling. Sometimes when we go to Waffle House, I watch in amazement, the steps of their short order cook.
My Everest.
Anywho, everything turned out okay and I was given hugs and encouragement to cook another day. I’m not happy about how I react to things, but I don’t know that I can change it. As I said before I spend a great deal of time tempering my response to most things, and I am on a nerve pill. My mother-in-law who is a retired nurse once told me: no woman over thirty has any business not being on a nerve pill. And she was right!
If you’re happy and you know it, shake your pills! :shooka shooka:
The crap women have to put up with.. we’re walking timebombs.. just sayin’.
Meanwhile, at least once a week I am jolted into DEFCON 1 after Kenny shouts a single cuss word at a doofy acting driver, while I am scrolling cluelessly on my phone in the passenger seat.
Women are expected to handle their stress in an aura of ethereal grace, with the patience of Gandhi, while assuring everyone all is well. And we have to do it with a beaming, smile-loaded face. Hormonally speaking, I have been expected to smile at anyone in front of me, no matter the situation since I was in my late teens, working at a bookstore in the mall.
“Why don’t you smile?“, the customer remarked bitchily.
Ah. My challenger arrives.
I maintain absolute eye contact, only eclipsed by a questionable toothy maw.
She left. Oh well.
