I decided to cook some food. This does not happen very often. I can cook pasta and nuke stuff in the microwave and make bagels brown in my bagel toaster, but that's about the extent of my cooking ability. I had a bag of pre-made frozen hashbrowns that I felt like eating. My first mistake was to read the instructions. I wanted to put the whole thing in the microwave, but, no, the instructions said fry this.

The bag said to pre-heat six tablespoons of oil in the frying pan. I got out the spoon that said TBSP and hoped it was the right one. I always get those two spoon thingees mixed up. Six TBSPs. Okay. Turn on the heat. Okay. Sit and wait.

I wandered over to look at the oil a couple of times. It wasn't really doing anything. I figured it would let me know when it was pre-heated enough by boiling or something. I turned up the heat and sat down with a book.

Next time I looked, there was steamy stuff coming up off the oil. It might have been smoke. I figured it was done getting heated. I opened up my bag of little square hashbrowns, and stood well back: I had learned my lesson on that one before. I dumped about half the bag, and Oh My GOSH! It was all loud and suddenly there was so much smoke I could hardly see and my eyes were stinging and little drops of oil had gotten on me dispite my distance precautions.

The directions said to let the little potato bits sit for 10 to 15 minutes. I guess to brown or something. So I had plenty of time to stumble to the door to let out the smoke. And let in the 30 degree wind. Brr. I had to shut the door before the smoke was all gone. I noted the time and went back to my book.

Ten minutes later I went back to the stove. There is icky grease everywhere. I get my wooden spoon and turn the hashbrowns and discover they have All burned to a crisp. Shoot. I turn down the heat and view the desolation.

With a sigh I get down a plate and a fork. I fill my plate with little burned hashbrowns. Maybe some cheese would make them better. I drop some shreaded cheddar on my plate and give myself a fork-full. Ick. Ketchup makes it slightly less horrible. A little bit of ranch dressing... okay, a lot of ranch dressing, and I am able to eat a few more bites. sighs. I decide it's unsalvageable.

I start the clean up and promptly burn the back of my thumb on the greasy frying pan. I say a few choice words and stare at the reddening mark.

Damn hashbrowns anyway.

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