I Married a Modder!

I am not a cook. I’ve never enjoyed cooking. Anytime I’ve ever attempted to make something it generally ends up a disaster. I do like eating. - Particularly cookies, so if anyone would like to enter the Big0ne’s best 2o2p cookie contest I’ll gladly send an address for you to submit your entry. – OK, back on track. I arrived home from work yesterday to find Librarian upstairs playing a little Halo2. That’s not entirely unusual. She often likes to take out her work frustrations on some defenseless grunts. She was having a little trouble figuring out where to go next so I sat down with her for a few minutes to see if I could help. It’s extremely difficult to jump in mid game, not knowing where the player has already been or where they are now, and figure out which direction to go next. After a couple of minutes running around looking for the tell – tell signs of dead bodies and abandoned weapons, I finally found which way to head next. About that time a game invite pops up from Lady is Red. “Wanna go play that instead? I asked. “Sure” she said. I told her I’d go down and build a couple of new hounds in CH and see her in a few.

Now, this is where the cooking part comes in. After about 45 minutes or so I wandered back upstairs to see how she was progressing, and if everyone still had their sanity.  She had a big smile on her face and seemed pretty engrossed in what she was doing so I tentatively asked, “What are we doing for dinner?” “Sloppy Joes and Mac-n-Cheese” was the response. Hum. I knew by the tone it may still be a while before I’d see this gourmet dining experience actually served so a light bulb went off inside my head. I’ll make dinner! After all how hard could it be? It sounded simple enough. I headed down stairs full of excitement knowing that this gesture of marital thoughtfulness was going to score me BIG points. After a short 5-10 minute search of every cabinet, drawer and shelf in the kitchen I found the box of Kraft’s finest pasta and the glorified ketchup can that is Manwich. Another search finally secured what appeared to be the correct pans to use to assemble the feast. Let me take a moment to ask this question. Why don’t they put the sizes of the pans on the pans? Anyway, I diligently proceeded to follow the instructions on the cans and boxes and felt that everything was pretty much under control.

About that time Librarian comes strolling around the corner. Apparently Lady’s kids woke up so it was a mutually beneficial time for them to call it a day. Well, she was happy to see the effort that I had put forth, but. She immediately starts grabbing tiny little bottles of, I don’t know, spices maybe?. “Those aren’t mentioned on the Manwich can.” She then proceeds to move the still not yet boiling pan of water from the back burner to the front one. Isn’t heat heat? Apparently not. She then pours some kind of oil into the pan of water. “That’s not in the instructions either” I said. Then she pours the Manwich sauce on top of the hamburger. Hamburger that I managed to get brown all by myself, thank you very much (although I was informed that I used the wrong spoon). I go to throw the emptied can in the trash and notice there is still a little left in the can. I went to empty the rest of it onto the meat when “NO!” “Don’t do that!” I thought at that point I might be beaten. Apparently the 1 can per 1 lb. of meat on the label is just a suggestion. At that point I politely and with a gleam in my eye turned to my lovely bride and said. “You’re a cooking modder” and sat down to watch television.