The Mansion kitchen ain't big enough for the both of us! The Pony gets a rare day off, and uses it to take over my meal prep time! Almost as if it was premeditated. Which it wasn't, because The Pony is not a planner.
The Pony's last day off before Monday was the previous previous Sunday. So he's worked 8 days straight, all but one of them more than 10 hours a day. I understood that he would probably sleep in. By 1:30, I was getting concerned.
"PONY! Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"You haven't been out of your room for anything!"
Normally I would hear him clanking ice into his metal cup, or thumping to the bathroom. But not this time. He DID come out of his room shortly. I had just made a pot of noodles, chicken, mushrooms, peas, and parmesan cheese, tossed with part of a jar of alfredo sauce. The Pony won't touch that. It's like kryptonite to him. I'd asked Sunday night if he wanted some left without the mushrooms and peas, but he did not.
Anyhoo... The Pony said that when I went to town, he'd be making tacos with leftovers in the freezer. Namely diced chicken, and the remains of some instant Spanish rice from last Sunday. He often (when he has time off) makes his one meal of the day while I'm in town.
However... when I returned from town, The Pony was just starting his "lupper." I'd been gone from 2:30 to 4:00. You'd think that would have been enough time to make food and GET OUT of the kitchen. I was wanting to strap on the old feedbag. Belly up to the trough. To warm up my noodle dish and grab a couple of Hawaiian rolls, and head to my lair with a fresh 44 oz Diet Coke. But there was The Pony, standing at the stove.
"Oh. I guess I'll wait until you're done before I can have my own lupper."
"I guess."
"Hey! Don't do that!"
"I'm just breaking up the rice."
"Not like THAT! I heard that fork stabbing my nonstick pan when you stabbed it through the rice chunk! You should have microwaved that first, before putting it in a skillet."
"I didn't stab your pan! All you heard was this. The pan rattling on the burner when I broke through the rice."
"I don't think so! Do it again, then. Show me."
"I don't need to do it again."
"Uh huh! Thought so! You KNOW you stabbed my pan! So you won't do it while I'm watching."
"The chicken will be easy to warm. It broke apart."
"Yeah. Because I diced it before it was put in the freezer! All you had to do to the rice was bang the baggie on the cutting block, and it would have separated itself. But wait! Don't try to change the subject!"
"Fine. I'll buy you another skillet, and I'll take this one when I leave."
"It doesn't work that way! You can't just take what you want."
"I guess my pans will be all right. I think they're in that tub in the garage..."
"Huh. I guess I might as well go lay down until I can get my food out and warm it. I guess my soda will get all watery, since I can't put more ice in it, with your laptop taking up the cutting block, and your food all over the counter."
"Yeah. I'll holler at you when I'm done."
"I thought the plan was for you to get your food while I was in town for an hour and a half."
"No. I didn't specifically say that..."
Too bad he was too tired to drive down to Steak N Shake like he used to on his days off.
4 comments:
Wouldn't your soda be LESS watery without the extra ice? Do you not have plastic/silicon/wooden utensils to be used with non-stick pots and pans?
River,
My magical elixir comes out of the spigot cold. I put in minimal ice to get it home, still cold. Then I add the solid half-moon cubes from FRIG II's freezer, which melt much slower than the clear little squares of ice from the soda fountain. If my elixir sits, even double-cupped, for very long, those store ice cubes melt, the temperature of the soda gets warmer without ice, and then FRIG II's cubes will melt faster when added.
SO... they key to the perfect magical elixir is to get it home cold, with minimal ice to be shaken and melted on that bumpy pig trail that is our gravel road, and then to add solid ice cubes to maintain the coldness with slower melting.
Of course there are such utensils. But The Pony preferred a metal fork for jabbing that frozen slab of Spanish rice.
You know what also is too bad? The Pony didn't pick up on your passive-aggressive routine. The problem: males are sometimes a bit dense when it comes to subtle (and even not-so-subtle) banter like this.
Be more direct next time, is my suggestion.
Sioux,
Yes, The Pony has too much Farmer H in him. I should have wrestled that fork out of his hand, and insisted he move the laptop. It's not like he could be computing while jabbing my non-stick pan.
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