Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Pheasant McNuggets Contest Entry 6

Here's a ramble from one of my favorite people even if I haven't read any of her fiction yet. I know, I know...I'm a bad person. Let me get this Roman military thing out of my system first.
I'm not going to say my mother was a bad cook because she wasn't. She was an inattentive cook. She was a distracted cook. She was a careless cook. With seven kids, a husband, her own mother, a dog, a cat, and anybody who just happened to drop in, I can even understand why she would became a specialist in multi-tasking even when cooking. I can even accept cutting a few corners. Unfortunately, many of our meals were easily predictable dinner disasters. There was more than one flaming Thanksgiving turkey served smoldering on our dinner table. Blackened scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes were staples.

However, there is one dinner memory which can still send me straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth and tongue for a good twenty minutes or so. This is not for the faint of heart so some of you may wish to look away for the next few lines.

It happened in the fall of 1988. I was working my first professional job. Being young and eager, I was skipping meals with the family so I could go in early and leave late. My parents were not entirely happy with my schedule or my eating habits. So, when I got home from work one night my mother stopped me at the kitchen door and pointed to a still hot plate of food on the table. She had fried potatoes which weren't burned, delicately buttered and generously salted corn on the cob, and grilled a healthy slice of juice steak. I thanked her and sat down to eat without even changing my clothes. The steak cut easy and seemed medium rare which was something of a miracle in my house. I popped the piece in my mouth and tasted...fur! She had her back to me when I started to spit and sputter.

"DID YOU DROP MY DINNER IN THE CAT DISH?" I managed to ask between gagging sounds.

My mom spun around with the most stunned look on her face. "How could you know that? You weren't even home!"

Hope you enjoyed the story. I have to hurry off to the bathroom and brush my tongue for a while.

phair


Phair was a frequent guest rambler at Beyond Uber and I hope this means she'll gift us with her words from time to time here at Uber Etc. If you'd like to read phair's fiction, visit her web site and leave some feedback. Just don't mention furry steak or she'll be forced to brush her tongue.

Tamara

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