For those who don’t already know, my eyesight is … well, let’s just call it unpredictable.
Years ago, when I was young and thin, good-looking and not very bright, I made a horrible decision for cosmetic surgery which ended up screwing up my vision for life. It can’t be corrected, only … I dunno. Accounted for, I suppose. I have to sort of average it out. So, anyway, long story short, I have really poor vision, especially early in the day (whenever that comes for me).
So this morning, I stumbled out of my bed and got started with my job hunt and things like that. I spent some time online with blogs and Twitter and whatnot. Then I got the kids fed and decided to have something to eat myself. Not a major decision for most people, but lately, food and I aren’t getting along very well and I have to walk on eggshells with it. So on tenterhooks I go to the fridge for something tummy-friendly to eat.
And there, nestled in a black plastic container from a favorite local Chinese delivery joint with the clear plastic lid covered in condensation, is a pile of what looks for all the world like my wife’s amazing twice-baked potato filling. She’s made some pretty amazing stuff of late – twice baked potatoes being a favorite for the kids and me – and some of it managed to be left over. So I thought I hit the jackpot.
I peel the lid off the container and set it on loose, to allow the steam to escape while I re-heat what will eventually be a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes. I’m considering digging for the leftover chicken that went with it too, as I pop it in the microwave and tick the timer over to two minutes. It’s a large heap, so I figured I’d start with two minutes and if it’s still cold in the middle I can zap it a few more seconds and see how that does it. But I want to be careful, because I don’t like how the microwave alters food, so I don’t want to ruin this delicious lunch I’m prepping.
I catch a glimpse of one of the many makeshift cookie jars my wife has, and see it’s been left apart from the others on the counter. Intrigued – because I’m famished at this point – I open the lid and see the sugar cookies she made for the kids to decorate last night. Good stuff – not too sweet, not heavy, great texture. I decide against sneaking one, though. Again, I’m set on those spuds. Don’t wanna mess it up for myself.
I give up on the chicken idea and return my attention to the microwave, as the final seconds wind down. And I’m still smelling those sugar cookies even though the lid’s securely placed back on the jar. Hm. Interesting. The pleasant, sort of starchy scent is a bit doughy considering they were mixed and baked last night. And my wife stored the leftover cookie dough, so it’s not out on the counter turning rancid.
So what’s with the smell?
The electronic chirp of the microwave cries at me and I pull the black container out of the chamber. But something’s … not quite right. No, not right at all.
The lid of the container, set atop the black plastic bowl, is pushed up and aside a little. The potatoes under it seem to have … to have grown somehow, like some mutating blog monster from a bad 50s Sci-Fi movie. They’ve … expanded. Bloomed. And as the steam slowly drifted around the edges of the circular plastic lid, it almost looked like it was breathing. Exhaling.
Then I caught that odor, that smell. A starchy, floury smell, like sniffing into a bag of … well, flour. All purpose flour. The kind you’d use to make …
Oh, no.
No, no, no!
Nooooooooooo!
Rip the lid aside, take a big sniff. Yep, it’s this stuff. This … this is not twice-baked potato filling. Not at all. No, this … this is …
… cookie dough. The leftover cookie dough from the night before.
I shove a spoon into the puffy mixture and more steam escapes. I stir, wild, vigorous cranks of the spoon, trying to get the dough down, down, cool, dammit, cool off!
Finally I slam the lid back onto the container and stuff the still-hot plastic back into the fridge. A few hours, yeah, yeah, just a few hours and it’ll be all right, it’ll be fine, two minutes, c’mon, how much damage can two minutes do? It didn’t harden, I could still stir it, who’s gonna notice, right? Right?
Right?
-JDT-
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En*DANE*gered 
yikes — what a wake-up call that must’ve been
It was … eye-opening, yes. Thanks for stopping by, Davis!
LOL Love the last paragraph. Now I am convinced that males are secretly pulled aside for separate instruction as children. Nobody’s going to notice, LOL.
It’s my eyesight, not my brains! I SWEAR!
Kinda reminds me of the time I placed a corn-dog in the microwave thinking 25 minutes … it’s weird how that stuff turns into a “polyvinyl chloride” type substance in about 16 minutes …
Ooh, man. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. The worst I’ve gone in that direction was heating up soup for five minutes instead of three and having it explode all over the inside of the microwave. Thanks for coming by, Steve!
OMG, I’m laughing too hard to type. 🙄
You warmed up cookie dough? Everybody knows you’re supposed to eat that stuff cold. hehehe
Believe me, it wasn’t intentional.
Has your (lack of) vision ever made you do things in some places that were supposed to be done in other places. Like using the bidet instead of the toilet. hehehe
Uh, no … no bidet. And I have SOME vision, but it’s hard to distinguish between certain unidentified items in unmarked packages in the fridge first thing in the morning. I also have a hard time reading, screen or print.
But I’m guessing you don’t have a bidet. Best not to have one of those with little children in the home.
“Mommy, Daddy, look, a sink I can reach without the stool! Now I can brush my teeth without the stool!”
Well, no bidet, but those aren’t the reasons. Money is most of the reason.
Could be worse, dude. You could have thought you were going to the bathroom and instead been going in the kitchen sink or the coffee maker. “Honey, I don’t know how you made the ocffee this morning, but it sure is goo-ood! Mmmm-mmm!”
No wonder you have a chimp for your avatar. Ick.
Oopsie. Now I want mashed potatoes for breakfast.
Make SURE they’re POTATOES, though.
LMAO. I am sorry Darc, this is too funny. At least you didn’t put a bite in your mouth expecting potatoes. Pretty soon we are going to hear how your other half has to put locks on the fridge now. 😀
Oh, I did taste it after I’d cooked it to figure out exactly what it was. And Falcon’s face when I told her the story was … well, priceless.
Good job dude, bet the kitchen smelled pretty darn good though!
Damn, now I’m hungry for both mashed taters and cookies!
No, the cookie-cooking smell didn’t get going real good, so it just smelled doughy, like I said. But you’re the second to crave taters from the post! HA!
I can understand the disappointment. I could live happily on mashed potatoes and nothing else–cold, hot, instant, real–it’s all good to me.
Me too. My wife HATES instant though. And then she HATES the work associated with REAL, so wth, y’know? Can’t please ’em.
Oh look, it’s time for lunch….
Eureka! It IS!
This was so funny, I laughed for 5 minutes. Thanks I needed that.
I’m glad you liked it, Bonnie, and thank YOU for stopping by and letting me know! 🙂
Yup, potatoes are one of my favorites, too. It’s when you start looking like one, you kind have to stop and eat some salad. I’ve brushed my teeth with neosporin before. That will wake you right up and my eyesights just fine. 🙂 Hilarious! No more food in front of the computer.
YOW! Neopsporin toothpaste! UGH!! Ptuey!! 😉 OH, and if I still looked as good as a potato, I’d be happy. I’m well into “pumpkin” at this point.
I like pumpkins! They’re orange. Don’t even go there. Say thank you Sara and stop. 🙂
Thank you Sara, and stop! 🙂
I’d be sad about missing out on mashed potatoes…
I was. See, now it’s my turn to make YOU sad. 😉
Thank you much for the laugh i needed today. And dont feel bad everybodies been there for one reason or another. So the question is what become of the Nuka Dough?
I’m happy you enjoyed it! I got a good laugh out of it too. 😉 I think the dough’s still in the fridge, waiting a decision on whether it survived or not. Hehehe.
Great story. (So many tales of guys in the kitchen end with laughs. The men of the Food Network have to be some sort of aliens.) For a moment there I thought you’d been experimenting with a chembot.
If you can hunt down a copy — haven’t been able to find it online, except in brief references — you might get a laugh out of James Thurber’s piece called “The Admiral at the Wheel.” One of those references, called Encyclopedia of the Essay, says:
“Thurber, almost completely blind, wrote that ‘The kingdom of the partly blind is a little like Oz, a little like Wonderland… Anything you can think of, and a lot you would never think of, can happen there.’ In such a world… common objects ‘blur into fantasy’ as Thurber, without his glasses, sees such remarkable sights as “a gay old lady with a gray parasol walk right through the side of a truck,” and an electronic welder is transformed into ‘a radiant fool setting off sky-rockets by day.'”
I bet Thurber would have been right there with you in the kitchen. (He was certainly right there with you when you wrote this post!)
LOVE those references! I’ll have to look for this one … thanks, JES, and I’m glad you got a giggle out of this. Normally I’m pretty facile in the kitchen … when my eyesight permits. 😉
I almost peed in my pants at the end of this! Love you!
HEY! THERE YOU ARE! OMGOMGOMG!! LOVE YOU TOO!! WOOOOOO!!!
Oh man. I feel for you with the eyesight problem. I can’t see a dang thing without prescription lenses, and even with them my left eye sometimes just stops focusing at the end of a long day. But none of that is as bad as wasting perfectly good cookie dough. 🙂
Well, if it were correctable, I’d be less miserable. But it’s not, so why complain, I guess, right? Still, the dough is … yes, there’s just … so much senseless slaughter. 😉
All I can do is just shake my head at the thought of you thinking you could hide the fact that you nuked the dough from Fal. Silly silly men – WE KNOW ALL!
I think I’m going to find a place that serves mashed potatoes for lunch. I hear Boston Market calling my name!
I think KFC has the best mashed ‘taters going, but that’s me. 😉