No One Told Me How Dangerous Scalding Hot Oil Is!!!!

* Disclaimer: this all happened while I was NOT on Valium.

For those of you that know me, you will be extremely impressed & proud of me. :)

I thought for once I would cook a meal for Kevin & I & the rest of my family instead of just throwing a pizza in the oven. I put 2 tablespoons of oil into a pan & turned the burner on high. While the oil was heating, I cut the potatoes into 1/4" slices (only cutting my finger twice) just like the recipe said. Then rinsed them in cold water & started tossing them into the boiling oil. NOTE TO SELF: don't "toss" just rinsed potatoes into boiling oil w/o taking 2 "Mother May I" giant steps backward. Come to find out, boiling hot oil on the hand creates blisters. (If I had a digital camera, I would take a picture & show you.) I plunged my hand into the sink & turned on the cold water. (It's still burning as I type, just for you sympathetic ones out there.)

Meanwhile, my son had escaped to the basement. I wouldn't dream of asking my dear brother, who's identity will not be revealed, but whose initials are jde, for any help w/ my son b/c he was extremely busy playing FIFA soccer. I wouldn't want to disrupt him w/ such a little thing as checking on my son.

So here I am, 1 hand out of commission & still plodding on w/ my cooking venture. What's next on the recipe? Pre-cooked chicken strips. Open the package and throw in pan. (Okay, so it didn't say "throw;" it didn't even tell me to the open the package.) Anyway ... I open the package. I've never bought precooked chicken strips before, but for some reason, I didn't think they were supposed to have little greenish blue fuzzy things on them. *sigh* "JOE! I need some help!" [whoops! guess I just uncovered his identity!] I send him in my car w/ my receipt to the store. "Oh, and on your way, could you drop this movie off? [Somewhere In Time - which I still haven't seen] It's due at 6pm." (I think it was about 5:30pm at the time.)

6:15 rolls around. Still no Joe. The store I sent him to was only 2 minutes away. Hmmm ... so I called the video store. "Hey, Tony. Have you seen Joe?" (I live in a so called city of 2,000 people. So when nameless person [me] calls Tony and says, "have you seen Joe?" she doesn't have to ask who is this? what Joe? when? etc. Everyone in this crazy little town knows everything about everyone else. Tony said he left quite a while ago. *sigh*

Okay. Let's try the store. No sign of Joe.

I finished the recipe w/o the chicken. I tried it & it was actually pretty good. When I was done eating, guess who walks in the door? That's right!!! Joseph Everson w/ my moldless chicken. So I throw the chicken in the pan, mix it all in, and try a bite. My dish tasted better w/o the stupid chicken, moldy or not! *sigh*

Here's the funny part that has nothing to do w/ cooking. My mom & dad walked in the house a few minutes later. In my mother's hand is a movie she just rented. Guess what movie? Joe comes walking in a couple minutes later and sees the movie on the table. He picks it up. Turns it over. A very confused Joe then looks at me, "Didn't I just ...?" I just laughed at him. By this time, I was far too tired to explain.

The moral of this short story: Natalie is dangerous when she cooks & she should not try it at home or anywhere else in the universe.