Guest blogger!

We have a guest blogger this week! It's all very exciting! And she comes all the way from Cleveland! She shares with us a traumatic tale...



Danielle recently invited me to share a poor decision that I've made. One coping mechanism that I have developed over the years in order to allow myself to go on living in spite of all the poor/embarrassing/mortifying decisions that I've made is to simply block certain things out. I've gotten quite efficient at blocking out bad memories. It was really hard to come up with something to write about because I've forgotten events prior to last Saturday. In fact I've become so efficient at shutting my brain off that I'm afraid the more vital brain functions are getting affected. Here is an example:

I am very strict about preventing shower curtain mildew. I try to enforce a stringent policy of always leaving the shower curtain closed and nice and spread out and airy so that it cannot collect mildew. Enter the main obstacle to my attainment of Shower Curtain Utopia: the Fiance, a creature whose main goal in the morning is to get to work on time which apparently prevents him from closing the shower curtain properly. On one particular weekend morning, (we are residing in Pittsburgh during this time), I slither into our bathroom like the sleepy slug that I am, ready to embark upon my morning routine. There I go, brushing my teeth, putting my toothbrush away neatly, my eyes are almost fully open at this time, here I am making sure I have a towel ready for after my shower, off I go to turn the shower on, I turn toward the bathtub---WHAT? the SHOWER CURTAIN IS OPEN? I am angry. I check the curtain for signs of mildew. Nothing there yet, I am momentarily placated. My shower ensues, it is relaxing. Lather, rinse, repeat. I am looking forward to the day ahead. I turn the water off. But...something is amiss. I thought I turned the water off, but then why do I hear water running?

My eyes quickly dart toward the sink, which is steadily overflowing. The faucet merrily runs like a babbling brook, onto the bathroom floor and into the carpeted hallway outside the bathroom. I step out of the bathtub onto the little red bath rug, even though it is completely underwater and it makes no difference whether had I stepped onto a bath rug or into a swimming pool.

Fiance and I spent the good part of the morning cleaning up. We exhausted all the absorbent materials in our home (1/2 roll of paper towels, a mop head) and set up a fan to dry the wet hallway (it took 4 days to dry). Even though I've lost my credibility as the guru of bathroom cleanliness, I still compulsively pull the shower curtain close whenever I get the chance.

---Q

Cooking

My little sister just got her permit three days ago. This has made all of us nervous, particularly me and my father because it is our cars she is practicing on since my mother's is currently more or less in a coma. My father is even more nervous than I am because, well, he was the one who took my sister for her very first driving lesson. Yesterday afternoon I told my sister I would take her driving, so we went to inform my father we were going out. He immediately jumped up from his chair and said, "Oh no, no no no. I will go. Not you. No. Highly dangerous. You are not equipped. Your sister will kill both of you and your mother will kill me. Unacceptable." So I said, "Okay then. I guess you two will go and I can stay here and make myself food."
My father immediately sat down again and squinted at me accusingly. "Explain 'make yourself food."
"I was thinking I would cook some eggs."
"Oh no. No, no, no, no. You'll burn the house down. Kill yourself. No more house. Your mother will kill me. Now I can't leave you alone..."

My father now faced a terrible choice. Which was more potentially fatal? His teenage daughter's second attempt at driving, or his 24 year old daughter's attempt at cooking?

In the end the problem was solved when he forced me into the backseat of my own car while he taught my sister how to drive, effectively preventing me from touching a stove AND monitoring my sister's every move.

A good solution, clearly. But what stands out to me here is the fact that my father believed me making myself eggs was equally as or MORE dangerous than my sister's first attempts at driving. It's a problem that has plagued me all my life, that I have inherited from my mother. Between the two of us, we've set at least 7 fires in various places--stove, oven, toaster, microwave. On one notable occasion, I set a salami sandwich on fire.
Another time while making cupcakes I mixed up sugar with salt. That is a lot of salt.
Knowing my weakness, one time while baking a cake I tried laying out all the ingredients before even beginning, checking them off a list, making sure I had the correct amounts of the correct things all in a line on the counter. When I took my cake out of the oven awhile later, I discovered that it was completely flat. Completely. I was very puzzled, until I turned around and found that all of the flour was still sitting nicely on the counter, waiting to be added.
Pasta. Oh, pasta. I can't tell you how much pasta and how many pots have been burned and destroyed in this household, between my mother and myself. We have an attention problem. Set the temperature on high so the water boils faster, forget we are making pasta two minutes later, occasionally go so far as to leave the house, return and discover blackened bits and one livid father/husband threatening to beat our heads in with his beloved and dead cook ware.
I have lost so much blood over cutting carrots and tomatoes and chicken and yes, even opening a tin of biscuit dough. You know those easy open Pillsbury tubes? Not so easy open to everyone.

These days, I get much of my food by wandering downstairs whenever I am hungry and announcing loudly what I am going to cook for myself. Wherever my father is in the house, he will come running, shouting, "I'll do it! I'll do it for you! Get back into bed! Watch TV! Go to the mall! Come back and it shall be all done!"

As far as I'm concerned, this is a perfect system, because I hate cooking as much as it hates me.

This evening I was thinking about making something from a recipe I found that sounded good, but I realized what a TERRIBLE DECISION that would be, and figured it was much safer to write about cooking than actually attempt it.

I think I'll wave the recipe around my father and declare loudly how I am about to start trying it out.