Cooking FAIL.

“Damn you, frying pan, you've defeated me again!” --Me

It might be a fact that I'm the worst cook in human history. In fact, I can, and do, include ruinous events in my personal food-preparing timeline that shouldn't even be considered “food preparation.” I mean, like making Kool-Aid. It really is a sad, sad history. I'm not sure that I've ever successfully prepared a meal that anyone's eaten, excepting a steak I prepared for my friend John Oldfield's birthday well over a decade ago. See, that's how few and far between my successes have been. It's exceedingly sad because I think I've spent an inordinate amount of time around people who are exceptional cooks and bakers. When I say exceptional, I mean it—my list includes those who have been professionally trained or focused on the art of food preparation in a professional sense. I've never had a girlfriend that I've prepared a decent meal for; it's sad, yes, but it's in their best interest not to endure that aspect of me. I've been asked to assist a number of times, but after they've witnessed my utter lack of culinary proficiency, I'm typically relegated to tasks such as setting the timer or washing the dishes or getting them a scoop of ice cream after the meal. Hell, I'm even shitty at selecting wine; well, at least until I figured out that there are applications for that and now understand, when all else fails, that matching the color of the wine with the color of the food is oftentimes sufficient. I've tried to recollect some specific failures so that you can truly understand that I am the gustatory Angel of Ruin, as it were.

Today. Okay, this actually started last night. It occurred to me that my loaf of bread's expiration date was today, so I decided to make a couple grilled cheese sandwiches. I did a usually bad job, cooking one side well enough and the other just shy of “not at all.” I think it all boils down to impatience; I was getting annoyed that it wasn't cooking quickly enough. As a result, I decided, sigh, to turn the heat up when I attempted to make the same thing for lunch this afternoon. Burnt one side. I'm such an ass, and I refuse to learn from my mistakes, as if I'm going to “teach cooking a lesson .” Yeah. I'm going to go to battle with an abstract concept. What an asshole.

(1994) I'm in the Navy and living in this house in North Charleston, SC...

[thank you, Google Street View]...with my friends Robbie and Brad.  We're poor as crap because we party too much, so I decide that it's simply cheaper for me to buy Kool-Aid than soda. However, at some point I realize we don't have any sort of container in which the Kool-Aid can be made or stored. So, I put the powder, water, and a cup of sugar into the blender, puree, and then pour the results into a two liter Pepsi bottle. Not paying attention, while blabbing with Robbie, I repeat the process as opposed to simply adding more water to the two liter bottle. And that, my friends, is how you ruin Kool-Aid.

(1998) It was early September and the remnants of Hurricane Earl were working their way through good ol' North Chuck and past the condo I shared with my friend Randy. I put a can of Bush's Baked Beans into a pan on the stove; indeed this was to be my dinner in its entirety; when -poof- the power went off. For hours. Not thinking anything of it, I ate a peanut butter sandwich and went to bed. Apparently the power came on sometime after midnight and the beans resumed cooking. By the time I woke up, the smoke had permeated the house and the place stunk like burnt carbon for a week. Randy was no worse for wear, but I, on the other hand, was sick for a couple weeks. I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest by a horse.

(2001) I'd been drinking (but didn't drive anywhere) and was hungry for something lightning quick, but didn't have anything to microwave—not that using the microwave mitigates my ruinous efforts—so I threw spaghetti noodles in a pan, didn't cook them long enough, tossed them on a plate after inadequate straining, poured cold sauce on the whole crunchy mess, picked them up, turned, and watch the entire pile slide right off the plate and onto the floor. How then, you might ask, did I know it was crunchy? That's right. I pushed it back onto the plate from the linoleum floor and ate that nasty shit.

(2006) Another terrible spaghetti incident. It's late, and I haven't eaten, so I decide to make some spaghetti. I put the noodles on and promptly fall asleep. I'm not awoken by the fire alarm but by Otis nipping me on the cheek. The apartment is filled with smoke...

...[thank you yet again, Google Street View] and the spaghetti has burned itself into blackened absence. I'm sick for a week, again, because of inhaling the smoke. Lucky I didn't burn the place down. Again. I had to ventilate with a fan for several hours to at least clear the bulk of the smoke out, and I was too freaked out to sleep. Of course I had school in the morning.

Well, there you have it. A sliver of my trials and tribulations as the world's worse (and perhaps most dangerous) cook. And you know what the worst thing is? I don't even care. Bring on the Banquet frozen dinners, Essential Abs be damned!

p.s. Tonight, spaghetti. Flake out the hoses, Kent Fire Department...