on burning the dinner... again

or how burning the dinner is never about burning the dinner. and also, Run Lola Run.

I knew I burned the shrimp before the smoke alarm went off. I knew I scorched the langostinos and the pasta and the whole dinner. It didn’t even smell yet and I knew. The pots and pans were sealed shut, the charred bodies and their smell were still contained.

There is a moment before the smoke detector goes off when you know its only a matter of time before it’s gonna. I always get proactive during this brief period of OH FUCK I DID IT AGAIN and start waving dish towels over my head while saying No! over and over.

Sometimes when I do things like burn dinner I try to make excuses for why it wasn’t my fault but this time, it was definitely my fault. It was my fault in so many ways I couldn’t even keep track of them all.

It was one bad decision after another (after another) that led me to this moment and now I had to stand over the carnage like a poorly lit photograph in a meme on someone’s For You page.

Wild-haired, I stood there in my yellow crocs furiously hosing down charred shrimp and langostinos with the spray of the kitchen faucet. (The audacity I always seem to have to cook something gourmet-adjacent while in the throes of emotional chaos.)