The Mini-Bomb in the Kitchen

Ah…Memory…All alone in the moonlight…I can smile at the old days…

Sigh…

Our house is for sale.

An old college friend is moving to town.

Either way, it’s safe to say I’ll be moving from the house that we attempted to make a home after our parents decided that they secretly hated each other. Not that it was ever the home our Springhaven home was. That was house awesome. Loads of room, a basement all for our childhood and teenage pleasure complete with a big-screen TV, bathroom, and mini-kitchen, another big-screen upstairs, and enough room to where five of us were never on top of each other. Now THAT was a home.

This house…not so much.

But that isn’t to say that we haven’t had some good memories in it.

Cue Deuteronomy and Grizabella…

Some days ago I was home from work around 5:30 and Andrea was working her late night at the shop. I started cutting up chicken to marinate for a couple of hours until she got home. My eyes strayed to the wall above me where dark spots of water and oil vaguely stained the cheap spray-paint paint the builder used. The spots are gone now, but the memory remains.

Flashback about two years ago.

I was coming home late from working at Acros. Andrea was excited for me to get home because she was getting dinner ready, something she wanted me to try (an idea from Rachel Ray). I get home and see her cutting chicken and then rolling it in flour. As she is doing this, she has a skillet with olive oil on the burner heating.

“Do you smell that?” she asked referring to the smell coming off the burner. It was our first time cooking with olive oil, please DO NOT JUDGE.

I shrugged my shoulders. I was just beginning my cooking education compliments of my teacher, Andrea.

“That can’t be right,” she said. I ignored her. Until she got the bright idea to pick the hot skillet with the hot olive oil up, carry it to the sink, and proceed to turn on the water. I learned in chemistry class that oil and water don’t mix, but cold water and hot oil REALLY do not mix. A hiss of smoke went up in the air as soon as the water hit the skillet and I swear my sister made a mini-bomb in our kitchen.

Oil went everywhere.

It spilled over into the living room (across the bar), staining the carpet and coating the couch with oil, it flew up the wall, damn near reaching the cathedral ceiling, and it got all over Andrea.

“My face! My face!” she shouted and began stomping in place. I grabbed her long enough to look. Her face was fine, but she was going to have some ready-blotchy burn spots on her arms for awhile. I let her know it was fine (thank god the skillet was tilted away from her), and then let her go inspect the damage.

We did resume cooking. No more water was used. The meal was great, and is one of our favorites.

Fast forward to a year later…

I’m at work and the phone rings. It’s for me. It’s my mother.

“What’s all over my wall?” she says.

I shrug my shoulders not really knowing what she is talking about. The night from a year ago isn’t exactly in my memory.

“Something is all over my wall…above my sink…it’s a stain. Did you and Andrea get alcohol all over the wall making margaritas or something?”

“Oh that,” I say as nonchalantly as possible, channeling Liar, Liar, “that was already there,” I say.

For a minute, she’s speechless. “What do you mean that was already there?” she snidely asks.

“I’m saying, you just now noticed it. It’s been that way for a year.”

This isn’t what she wants to hear, but she allows me to recant the Oil Bomb Story for her.

“Well, you two are going to have to paint that,” she says to me. “I thought about calling your sister earlier, but I knew she’d just lie to me.”

“Ok, Mom,” I say and get her off the phone. I’m so excited to call Andrea and tell her this, it was absolutely hilarious. And we laugh about it.