Friday Night Fiasco

Last night I thought about getting a pizza but as it was pouring rain I took pity on the delivery guy and decided to actually cook. I decided to do a simple meal of a frozen chicken breast you bake in the oven for 10 minutes on each side and instant rice. So this really was a very easy dinner, something I’ve cooked many times before yet somehow last night turned into a complete disaster…

First I threw the chicken on a baking sheet and into the warmed up oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. I also set the microwave timer for 3 minutes and after it went off I turned on the burner and put a pan of water on it for the rice. By the time the first 10 minutes were up for the chicken, the water was boiling for the rice. Perfect! I turned the chicken over for another 10 minutes and threw the rice into the boiling water and set the microwave timer for 10 minutes. Piece of cake, right? Except that cake started to crumble very quickly.

Since my hospitalization I have these special sponges on my leg to generate growth in the wounds and the sponges are attached to a tube which goes to a small machine that provides the stimulation. I have to carry the small pouch wherever I go although there is about 2 feet of tubing from my leg to the machine which gives me some maneuverability. So each time I got up to go to the kitchen I had to bring it with me and laid it on a counter while I worked at the stove. But after setting the last timer I went to throw something away. Turned out there was more than 2 feet from the counter, where the pouch was, to the garbage bag. Next thing I hear is a loud bang as the equipment was pulled to the hard kitchen floor by the stretched tube on my leg. Oh s**t.

Apparently dropping the little machine wasn’t something it liked. Although it was making a very loud noise it wasn’t working at all. I moved into the living room so that I could sit down and take a look at it. Having no clue what I was looking for I nonetheless opened the cloth covering of the machine. When in doubt reboot, right? Wrong, turning it on and off didn’t work. I did however notice that much of the racket came from the detachable container on top of the little machine which collected blood and stuff from my leg. Hmm. Could it be that simple? To my utmost surprise it was! For once I took off the damaged container and replaced it with a new one my little machine purred and worked perfectly! Yeah!

I didn’t gloat too long over my cleverness for all of a sudden I realized my injured leg felt wet. I looked down to see a trickle of blood running down my leg which had created a stain about the size of a half dollar on my carpeting. Great. So back to the kitchen for paper towels to clean up my leg and try to clean up the blood stain on my carpeting.

There was still about five minutes left until my dinner was ready so I sat back on my couch, propped my injured leg up and watched the news. I barely had gotten comfortable when I heard a loud bang and then another bang coming from my kitchen. What the ? I ran, or my version of running with my injured leg and carrying the pouch back into the kitchen. A first glance showed that nothing else had fallen to the floor and everything was where it should be. But a second glance clued me in to what happened.

My microwave had killed a plate. Apparently I had not turned on my microwave timer but rather had turned on my microwave! Now I am the queen of the microwave as most of my meals are zapped but the crown has slipped a bit after this amateur mistake. As for the plate, it was a goner. In fact it is still in my microwave as I couldn’t bring myself to clean up my own mess.

If you’re wondering, I keep a plate in my microwave because so many things like popcorn or small bags of veggies suggest you place them on a plate before zapping it. As I had popcorn the prior night I simply kept the plate in the microwave for the next time I might need it. Now I know rule number 1 of microwaving - never turn on the microwave with nothing in it. But in my “what can go wrong will go wrong” evening I must have turned on the microwave itself instead of turning on the microwave’s timer.

As for the dinner, itself? Although I followed the directions, the chicken came out rock solid on the outside and dry and stringy on the inside and the rice was very sticky. In other words it was about as bad as it could get. Tonight, I don’t care how hard it is raining, the delivery guy can just get wet when he delivers my pizza!