I Toil, You Make Trouble

In my next life, I'd like to be a weatherman. That's right. A meteorologist. On TV. Because you don't really have to do anything that you're held accountable for. It's not like your job depends on how twenty-five seventeen-year-olds answer thirty-one multiple-choice questions about the structure of a cell's phospholipid bilayer, and facilitated diffusion, and what happens to a cell in a hypotonic solution compared to what happens to a cell in a hypertonic solution, and the difference between smooth and rough endoplasmic reticulum, and the relationship between deoxyribonucleic acid and ribonucleic acid during transcription.

Yeah. Let's see you go on TV and teach THAT, you namby-pamby weatherpeople! I'm talkin' to YOU, Cindy Preszler. And YOU, Dave Murray. And even you, Steve Templeton, whose name I had to look up because, well, you Channel 4 weathermen are just so nondescript. I could stand in front of a camera and "predict" the high tomorrow to be 78 degrees. And I could do it without even glancing at any weather data. It's not brain surgery. Nor rocket science.

I went outside for my parking lot duty this morning, and stood in the drizzle of the clear skies that were supposed to be in the area after 5:00 a.m. I dressed my child in shorts and a lightweight shirt because the high of 78 would make him too warm in jeans. I planned to advance the pot of chili I wanted for supper to Wednesday night, and a cooler evening. Imagine my surprise when I walked out for afternoon parking lot duty under dark clouds and 67 degrees.

But don't you worry about me, you high-dollar chief meteorologists. I'm just fine. My bubbling cauldron of chili brought joy to my household on this unforeseen dreary day.  I wish I could share the recipe. But it is never the same twice. Genius was called out of his room for a tasting. "This is perfect! Don't add anything else. Do you hear me? Don't change it!" He must be onto my cooking techniques. He is, after all, the one to tell me I'm some kind of short-temper cook.

Chili just evolves. This time I threw in two cans of chili beans, and one can each of dark red kidney beans, pinto beans, baked beans, and blackeyed peas. I added a can of tomato sauce with garlic and basil, a can of diced tomatoes, and an envelope and a half of McCormick chili seasoning. A buttload of hamburger, from Save A Lot's own butcher, and a diced fried onion went in next, and were showered with some coarse black pepper. Then things really got interesting. It was time for dashes and spritzes. Worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, hickory BBQ sauce, ketchup, Heinz 57, and Frank's Original Red Hot Sauce. Thanks, Frank. The piece de restistance was the addition of four packets of Splenda. You know, in case the ketchup and BBQ sauce didn't add enough sugar.

Contrary to what my students might tell you, there was nary an eye of newt nor toe of frog in my cauldron.