I firmly believe that it takes years of practice to get an authentic Louisiana dark roux right without burning it. My sympathies. I’ve done that more times than I want to remember.
The other day, I decided to walk to my nearest light rail section, noting that it takes only ten minutes to get to near my house from there by bus.
75 minutes of walking along heavily congested road later, I realized that the bus can go that stretch at about thirty miles an hour, while I go much, much slower.
A couple weeks ago, I was on laundry duty. My husband was at school, working on his thesis, so it was all up to me! I’ve done this before, many times, and I know that I need the building key to get into the laundry room, and I know that I need my apartment key to get back into said apartment, but what do I do?
Basket, check. Detergent, check. Coins, check.
Out the door I go. Door closes. Keys?.. chec…fuck!
No keys, no cell phone, nothing to do but go the the super (during his dinner do-not-disturb hour) to sheepishly ask if he can let me back into my apartment.
He doesn’t know me too well, so checks the lease for my name, then gives me the set of spare keys.
Of course, for some reason, the keys don’t work. They fit the lock, but won’t turn.
Back to the lobby I go, but this time I just left the basket on the hallway floor, but the super is back in his apartment. I hang around for 10 minutes, wondering if I should go make a phone call to my husband at the convenience store (but I won’t be able to get back into the building if I do), but it’s just about the right time for him to likely be taking the bus back, so I won’t be able to reach him, and…well, just then the other superintendent shows up, and I explain what happens, give back the spare keys and she lets me into the unit using the master.
sigh
Of course, I also forget, after 4 years, which cupboard has our plates and which has our glasses.
mnemosyne I may be, but forgetful I am!
I was on the potty and SO reminded me that the cupboard door was open above the toilet. I say “yeah, I know” Pull up underdrawers, stand up, and D’oh! Sharp corner of cupboard door right between the shoulder blades.
For some reason known only to the gods, I decided to bake cookies. Usually my kitchen expertise ends at the microwave, but I had a cookie craving that wouldn’t quit. Armed with freshly printed internet instructions and a big wooden spoon, I get to work measuring and mixing (in the right order, no less) all the necessary ingredients. In to the oven they go and, feeling quite proud of myself, I head over to the couch to watch The Sopranos.
Not their best season, I’ll admit, but I love that show more than my own children (I’m sure there’s got to be one out there somewhere…heh).
It’s probably relevant to mention here that the last time I tried to make cookies (about a year and a half ago), I forgot about them entirely and fell asleep. Being violently shoved from a cloud filled with Swedish nymphomaniac supermodels breast feeding me microbrews into a harsh smoke-filled reality of fire alarms and burning ovens is not an experience I’d ever care to repeat. I still have the scar on my hand from my valiant attempt to rescue my chocolate chip chums from certain fiery death. I did have the presence of mind to wear an oven mitt, but when the tray started to tip I instinctively grabbed it with my other, very naked hand. Scorched or not, those were the best cookies I’d ever tasted.
Flash forward to present…
With my scar serving as a painful reminder, I made very sure this time to set the timer on the oven and didn’t even consider lying down on the couch. True to form, I again forgot about my kitchen escapades as I became completely engrossed in my world of Italian accents and overweight hit men. At the conclusion of said event, as my brain grudgingly trudged back to reality, an internal alarm sent a shock through my body and the scar on my hand began to glow with the searing heat of a thousand Harry Potters. A quick assessment revealed, to my great relief, an absence of torched cookie odor and a very silent fire alarm. The feeling was only temporary.
My culinary career has since been placed on injured reserve until Satan himself smacks me upside the head with a snowball. As I scampered back to the kitchen with the giddy excitement of a pubescent dog in a leg store I found, in heart crushing disappointment, that I’d forgotten to turn the oven on… :smack:
I hopped in my car and drove out of work the other day to grab a quick drive-thru lunch, since I had a lot to do at the office I told everyone I’d be back in a half-hour and had tons of work to do.
Driving back after wolfing down a hamburger, I got to daydreaming and spacing out. Somehow, the primative lizard recess of my brain decided to take over and handle the driving, instead of thinking about sex every thirty seconds like it’s supposed to do.
Somehow, I pulled onto the freeway, and drove. And drove. And drove. 40 miles later, my hypothalamus smugly passed the driving duties back to my frontal lobe. I wildly looked around, wondering where the hell I was. I have no clock in my car, and I’d left my cel behind, so I had no freaking idea where or how long I’d been driving!
I finally passed an exit, flipped around on the freeway, and drove back to work. I couldn’t really have driven this far, could I?
I slipped in to the office quietly and looked at the clock. My half-four lunch had turned into a 2 hour road trip! :eek:
I started residency 3 weeks ago. Lots of events to feel stupid:
-Missed a STEMI
-Missed a diabetic foot
-Thought that the paraplegic guy was a quadraplegic because he was an asshole who wouldn’t move on my exam
-Forgot to discharge a dude
-Ordered standing dilaudid instead of PRN dilaudid
-ordered 2 gallbladder ultrasounds (well one was ordered by the ER but wasn’t in the system when I ordered mine and then I thought the results were from mine and 2 got done)
-Broke a hypertensive urgency with (lots of) negative inotropes in a person with a history of CHF
Luckily nobody got hurt. Yet. All the serious ones were picked up by the people overseeing me. But still – folks, don’t get sick in July!
Hee! But all was not lost, right? I mean, you could turn the oven on and still have yummy cookies, right?
I made a fabulous, homemade from scratch, labour of love lasagne once. Damn, it was smelling good. Tastes tests proved it was going to be the lasagne my family would talk about for years.
Ah, done. Perfect. Cheese just browning and bubbling at the edges. Rich, savoury scent permeating the house, driving everyone mad with hunger. But my folks weren’t back yet, so I turned the oven off, thinking I’d leave the lasagne in there to stay warm, instead of taking it out.
Thought I’d turned the oven off, that is.
Damn. It was going to be a really good lasagne too.
I don’t know what the rest of this post means, but if you’re ordering some Dilaudid, pick some up for me, will ya? 
This is true, but by that time hunger had all but liquified my internal organs. I suppose everything turned out ok in the end. Fire was averted, chocolate chip cookies were had by all, and the people rejoiced. I will tell you this, however. Watching those damn cookies bake (as I didn’t dare distract myself this time…) was the most mentally draining experience of my entire life.
Except maybe the 60 seconds I spent watching the pregnancy test for that all-damning second blue line…
I grabbed my camera and went for a motorcycle ride yesterday afternoon. I came across a little heritage park. I parked the bike, took the camera and went for a little walk.
When I returned to the bike, I put the camera away, donned goggles, gloves and helmet, hopped on the bike, turned the key, pressed the starter button and …… nothing happened. I pushed the button another 25 times just in case. Still nothing.
Well, gosh darn it – the motorcycle’s only a couple of months old. I only have about 1400 km on it. How could it be broken?
I gathered my wits and came up with a plan. Inspect the starter. A moment later, I had confirmed that the starter was indeed where it was supposed to be. However, I was no closer to having a running motorcycle.
Plan B – it has a standard transmission. If I can get the thing rolling fast enough, I can pop the clutch and start the engine. Inelegant, but effective. It will get me to the dealership. Now, my motorcycle weighs about 600 pounds. This is a beast to try to get up to starting speed by myself. My first attempt was not successful. Obviously not going fast enough. Push it faster. Still not starting. After about 6 times, I’m pooped and ready to leave the damn thing on the side of the road.
And then I saw that the engine kill switch was in the off position. I must have bumped it with my helmet when I put the helmet on top of the mirror.
Nobody else needs to know about this right?
Been there, done that, qwest!
Last time I made biscuits, I didn’t want more than I could eat, so I halved the recipe. It called for 2/3 cup of milk. I walked over to our conversion magnet on the fridge, saw that 2/3 cup = 32 teaspoons. There are three teaspoons to a tablespoon, so I put 10 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons of milk into the recipe.
This time, I was just starting to calculate that when it hit me: half of 2/3 is 1/3. Which is easily marked on my measuring cup.
Sorry, I forgot a stept here- I meant to say that I put 5 tablesppons and 1 teaspoon in (because I was halving the recipe.)
I was prepping a text message to a friend on Friday morning. After a few minutes of tapping the buttons on my phone, I looked up and saw a bunch of gobbledy-gook. Apparently you’re supposed to tap the button a certain number of times to get the letter you’re seeking instead of relying on the other person to know which letter you meant to input.
Total brain fart. I’m blaming the early hours. :smack:
You are not alone. I’ve cursed colorfully at innocent elevators before realizing they were but waiting for me to give them a command.
NEWSFLASH:
Today I plugged my phone in. It works. Submerged underwater for FOUR DAYS and it works.
I’m a little apprehensive about using it, though. But I’m excited I didn’t lose all my phone numbers.
I just had to make copies, and I had two originals that I wanted to copy back-to-back. So standing there puzzling over the byzantine touch panel on the copier, I look at the icon for “two-sided to one-side,” and thinking, “I have two pieces of paper that I want to come out as one piecce of paper,” I pressed that option. Which, of course, was precisely the opposite of what I wanted. I then entered the number I needed and walked away to do something else.
Came back ten minutes later two a mountain of copies, because the option I pushed made a copy of the two blank back pages, thought “WTF?” and then realized what I’d done. :smack:
Aaacck! Typos. I did preview and correct, honestly! 
I made gumbo one time (not as sophisticatedly as you, however, with the roue) and it took hours to cook together, etc. So the next day I get the pot out to reheat it and serve to a dinner party. Of course I turn the heat on full-blast under that pot and simmer-height under the kettle I am trying to boil. And of course I don’t notice until the gumbo has a blackened taste throughout. :smack: