Independence Daze

“Hello?” my Federal Agent friend (I call her “Rose” on my blog to continue to conceal her true identity) answered her phone somewhere Classified by the United States Department of Justice.  (For REAL!)

“Is this a bad time?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t caught her in the middle of some top-secret government military Op.

“Not at all; I’m just watching some TV”, she replied casually.  (Yeah, right, “TV”!  Certainly she wasn’t monitoring surveillance videos previously recorded in a cramped phony cable repair van whilst taping interstate militia gun runners!) 

“So, what have you been up to?” she wondered as we hadn’t talked in a week or so.

Oh, but what HADN’T I been up to?!  (Well, not stock-piling ammunition!!!)

“I actually had my first ‘normal’ day yesterday” I confessed.

“Do tell!” she cheered in response.

And without so much as a day in prison or being tortured by guards at a Federal facility, I set aside my feelings of guilt at having to put down my feline Best Friend Pretty, and tried to embrace the fact that it was time to begin to move on with my life.

“I got up early (ish), finally colored my creepy silver roots after five weeks, dried and curled my ponytail, and made it to 7/11.  And I kinda thought that was all I could accomplish for the day, but Cecilia was FILTHY having sat parked for a month; so I took her to the carwash next door and got her a bath.  The poor gal actually had spider webs forming on the mirror outside the driver’s side door!  Next thing I know, we tooled proudly down the Boulevard to the bank to deposit a couple of residual checks - and yes, Pretty’s “pet refund” from the crappy Landlord - and I even had the presence of mind to extract some cash from my Unemployment Debit Card.  Mostly I was ready to go home at that point, but Cecilia (in her infinite automotive wisdom) chose to play some Red Hot Chili Peppers on her radio (JOY!) and next thing I know, she’s wheeling into a gas station to have her half-full tank filled to the max.  And with a belly fully loaded, clean as a whistle and sporting a fresh wax coating, Cecilia offered up her favorite “gangsta” theme song on the same channel; “Bad Habit” by  The Offspring.”

“Wow…  That’s a lot in one day!” my friend surmised.

“Oh, but I’m not done yet!” I added, with all due excitement.  “Not only did we make it back down the Boulevard to the Smart and Final Warehouse for diet 7-Up and an extra bottle of voddy for the bat-cave, but we made one final stop before returning home.”

“I’m listening…”

“I actually made it to McDonalds for my very first Angus burger since May 20th, almost a week before Pretty passed away.”

“Good for you, PP!” my friend replied cheerfully, well aware (after the passing of her father in 1991) of the inexplicable responses to the healing process of dealing with the loss of a loved one; be it a family member, acquaintance or faithful companion.

>>><<< 

I suppose it’s no big surprise that I was less than useful to the world the next day, having expended so much energy all at once; but for a change, I felt optimistic.

If I needed food, I ate.

If I needed distraction, I read a book or watched some mindless TV.

And if I needed sleep, I gave myself permission to take a mid-afternoon nap.

But as the sun will surely rise every morning to present new opportunities, so did I to take inventory of myself.

And out of the clear blue sky, I wanted spaghetti!

Box of dry pasta in hand next to a jar of Prego meat sauce (thank you, Yummy.com), Corning Ware pot of water bubbling to a boil, and feeling ever so confident that I had some inate, unexplored inherent ability to actually prepare foodstuffs, I gathered a small clump of the plastic-like strands and tossed them into the bowl, eventually coercing them into bending their will to my powerful mental forces (and, ya know, the hot water).

I was a Master Chef! 

Adding some salt (fast food restaurant packets) “to taste”, as recommended on the carton, I stood back in bewilderment and marveled at this whole alien inexact, imprecise ideology of “cooking at home” gobbledygook.

First of all, if you’re adding salt “to taste”, who’s the idiot that’s going to ladle boiling water into their gullet to see if it’s pleasing to the palate?  Secondly, according to the instructions, for perfect Italian al dente pasta, the noodles were to be cooked for exactly nine minutes.  (Does that include the three minutes it took me to make the damn things soften in the pot in the first place, or does the countdown only start after full submersion?)  Thirdly, I was apparently going to have to drain the eely bastards in a colander (THAT was an exhausting six minute search of my kitchen in and of itself); all the while carefully measuring out a half cup of spaghetti sauce that had to be monitored in the microwave so as not to splat its tomato pureed contents in a desperate suicidal attempt to flee from my unskilled abilities. 

But turning off the stove, and finding some oven mitts in a drawer (I have oven mitts?  Who knew?!), I picked up the pot and proceeded to dump the contents into the sieve, temporarily blinded by the heat of the scalding water blasting steam in my face.

Now, I’ve heard the highly improbable rumors and hype that some people seriously ENJOY this kind of torture on a daily basis.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Cooking is sadomasochistic my friends; I tell you, SADOMASOCHISTIC!  And just when you think you’re FINALLY done, you still have to WASH THE FREAKIN’DISHES!!!

But taking heart (and a calming deep breath) that I had personally created a meal for myself (the squirrely stands of pasta that smartly weaseled their way to freedom through the colander notwithstanding), I sat down to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Hmmm…

Yes, unfortunately, this “Hmmm” was decidedly not a “Yum”. 

It would appear that those three minutes of refusing to sink into a pot of boiling water actually DO matter when it comes to texture, and despite my Master Chef-esque abilities, I apparently SUCK at the fine art of draining pasta, because that was by far, the runniest wet dish of crunchy spaghetti ever created.

NEVERTHELESS!

Having not stock-piled ammunition in my home, but rather gathered a respectable amount of groceries from the Yummy.com team of Super Heroes (who unlike me have no anxiety/panic attacks at the prospect of grocery stores); I surveyed my refrigerator the next day. 

I had three hamburger patties!  I had Swiss cheese!  I could have a real homemade cheeseburger on the Fourth of July just like “normal” people do!

Okay, so it was two days prior to the actual Holiday, but if I could create one single cooked burger in a Beta Test of Meat Control, I would be able to celebrate Independence Day with a nearly arm-breaking courageous pat on the back.

After all, how difficult could it be?

Pulling out a frying pan from of a rarely-used bottom cabinet in the kitchen, I meticulously washed away the dust (plus one tiny dead moth carcass) and set the pan upon the stove.  There was no way to ascertain that the Teflon coating was still intact, so thinking on my feet, I slapped a dollop of butter in the center to make sure that nothing could stick on top of the gas burner, carefully turning the knob to just below the level of a high flame.  And knifing open the sealed container of beef patties, I cradled one in my hand that had been separated from the stack-o-three with paper sectionals before plopping it down into the pan.

“Oh, this could be good with some salt and pepper” (more restaurant packets), I salivated.  “Oh, this might be tasty with some melted cheese and mayo” I drooled hungrily, reaching for a spatula to sear-fry-squish the patty into fully-cooked submission.  And that’s when I noticed it:  Having handled the slab of bovine deliciousness prior to my Beta Test, a small stream of red cow juices and trickled down my arm like something out of a cheap horror film.  AAH!!!

With diligent attention equivalent to a proper surgical scrub-down in the sink lest I be covered in and potentially infected with E. coli bacteria, I eventually turned around to the stove, only to find that with one indelicate skin charring flip of tender beef slash hot buttery grease splattering all over myself, I had effectively blackened one side of the patty; the other side remaining quite a healthy-looking pink.

Suffice it to say, by the time I wrapped up my impromptu Marx brothers act, I managed to cook the meat thoroughly (making sure by continuously cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces); eventually lopped the drippy mess onto a plate (in sort of a circular fashion); and placing one piece of Swiss cheese across the top, I waited patiently for everything to bond together masterfully.

Hunh.

Despite my misconceived notion that cheese naturally melts atop a burger (it does when I go to McDonalds!), I stared quite disillusioned at my “feast”.  The Swiss refused to attach to the beef, rather acting like a creepy paraffin coating sliding about willy-nilly; and as the entire Beta Test seemed to have failed miserably, I drowned the dastardly concoction with a sea of A1 steak sauce and ate it.

>>><<< 

Perhaps I took on too much too soon.  But pouring a well-deserved (hearty!) cocktail that evening, I sighed in unbridled gratitude for the luxury of having no set-in-stone commitments until October.  This was truly my week of Independence; a week to be celebrated!

And logging on to the computer, I checked some emails, as well as confirmed that I indeed would NOT have to engage in my civic Jury Duty this week, what with the Holiday and most likely all Judges taking family vacations.  Right?

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please wish me luck as I drag my weary ass onto a Metro bus at 6:24am tomorrow to report downtown to the Los Angeles Superior Court, FFS, as I am NOT wasting my precious gas on this fresh Hell!

Contemplating moving Happy Hour up to an all-day Fourth of July intoxication,

~Festering P