I hate cooking. Just thought I’d let you know this in case you hadn’t caught on to this throughout 175 previous blog posts—a good percentage of which dwell on, or at least mention in passing, my loathe for kitchen-ish activities.
When I do have to produce something edible, I look for the fastest, easiest method possible.
Baking potatoes is no exception.
And when the heat index is triple digits, I try not to use the oven. So…
I wash the potato.
Wrap it in plastic wrap.
Stick a fork in it. (I kinda like this part. There’s something strangely cathartic about repetitive stabbing.)
Then toss it in the microwave.
After this step, I usually walk out of the kitchen and completely forget that I’m cooking until something dings, chimes, buzzes, or bursts into flames.
Or, in the case of this particular baked potato… Screams.
I know, I know. It was simply steam escaping from beneath the skin and the wrap. But that spud had some lungs.
At first I thought it was a cat, but all three were accounted for.
Then I thought it was the neighbor’s children playing outside.
By the time I figured out the high-pitched agony was coming from inside the microwave, Little Miss Muse had already loaded up her double-barreled bottle rocket gun and was about to light the fuse in a wholehearted attempt to protect her stomping grounds. (Literal stomping grounds. High heels on the hardwood floor all day that day as she paced and churned out ever-new ideas for us to write about—all while ignoring the work in progress (WIP) which need some restructuring before we can move on. Muses hate structuring or anything with the prefix “re-.” They believe their job is done on the carefree helping of word salad…)
I opened the microwave door and was greeted by humid steam. I grabbed a kitchen towel and pulled the potato out to the counter.
And stuck the fork in it again.
Only half done.
To help it out, I stabbed it a few more times, then sent it back to its electro-radiation inferno to finish cooking.
It continued to scream and whistle and whine. I’ve never met a root vegetable with so many complaints. Even the ones I truly did set on fire never complained as much as this potato.
It’s like my WIP.
Fussing.
Whining.
Screaming.
A little restructuring is in order. Clear the slate a bit and pave the road for the characters to be able to do their thing and save their corner of the universe. Stab it with a red ink pen a few dozen times and see what leaks out…
If the red ink pen doesn’t work, I might try a fork.
Come to think of it, I bet we all have some life circumstances that could use a red ink pen, a fork, some well-placed plastic wrap, and a hefty dose of microwave radiation…
Wow. I must be just a tick stressed.
It’s probably hunger. Yeah. Let’s go with that.
I’ll refrain from outright declaring that I feel like stabbing something.
Oops.
Little Miss Muse is backing up into the corner, gathering poofed-tailed cats as she goes. She’s aiming her double-barrel rocket launcher in my direction.
Time to go stab a potato with a fork.
Repeatedly.
