When I switched over from IT consultant to stay-at-home dad and aspiring writer a few weeks ago, I incorrectly assumed that those occasional bad days were long gone. You know, those days where you accidentally copied a client and called him a fellatio performer in more common parlance in the email train. Or when your newly launched e-commerce engine does not actually accept payments … or let anyone know that there is an error. Those days. Those feather-in-the-cap moments that every consultant has to go through to appreciate the large and well deserved salary.

Are you getting the sarcasm – cause I’m laying it on pretty thick.

I made that assumption with the farcical notion that since there wouldn’t be any more kick-off calls, QA, deadlines, deliverables, etc. there would be nothing to fail at. My days would be filled with idle chores, such as laundry, housework, yard work, and the like. Nice and easy and at a comfortable pace. And it’s easy to see how I came to that conclusion with my head so far up my own butt. Keep the whole head-up-butt thing in mind, its important for the rest of the entry.

Through high school and college, I worked a lot of terrible jobs at fast food restaurants and the like. At Wendy’s my shift manager actually asked me to remove all of the garbage from one dumpster, scrub it out, and then do it again for the other one. For the life of me, I cannot remember this man’s name or else I would put it here in bold, underlined 50pt text so that his infamy will follow him for the rest of his days. And this at the end of my shift. In retrospect, I’m convinced they were trying to get me to quit. But … haha … the joke was on them! I didn’t quit and I pulled all of that trash out barehanded and then scrubbed out each dumpster in turn. My only saving grace was that I use the same scrubber that we used for the bathrooms. Later that week, I rolled the rest of my shifts and got a new and still equally as crappy job. So there, in their face!

I digress. Point is I have some experience in the food industry and I can cook modestly well. Last night, I tried to make Thai Penang Curry for my wife and her dad. I had my snow peas, my baby corn, my basil, my chopped nuts, my onions, my coconut milk, and the lot ready to go. My first obstacle, my chicken was frozen. Apparently, the back half of my refrigerator is substantially colder than the front half. So with two hungry people waiting on dinner and all of the prep work done and on the stove, I made a hasty decision. I boiled the chicken pieces. Yummy.

That was only a precursor, shall we say an ominous portent of the impending disaster. The BIG problem is that the way I’ve been taught to cook rice is drastically different than my Vietnamese in-laws. I’ll cover the specifics of that in a future entry because it is worth exploring in more detail, but basically the poor Oklahoman’s way is more-like soggy grits. The Asian way is clumpy and sticky – which is essential if you are going to eat rice with chop sticks. I knew this going in so I changed my rice cooking style mid-way through the meal. Did I mention my head is normally located up my butt? Ok, good, just wanted to make sure that was mentioned.

The rice came out to what I can best describe as al dente. Each grain was slightly crunchy. As soon as I served up the meal and they started to eat, a flurry of conspiratorial, Vietnamese whispers started around the table. I knew two things immediately. First, they hated the rice. Second, they were trying to be polite and not tell me. I watched them persistently pick off all of the individual toppings with their chop sticks and barter back and forth between each other over who should eat what and then trade those food items discreetly between their plates. The rice remained untouched.

Finally, in my bluntly honest, American way, I asked, “you don’t like it, do you?”

After determining whether I had washed the rice prior to cooking it, which I hadn’t, Dad replied in a two-part answer. First, the politically correct: “Vietnamese and American/Europeans make rice differently.” This was troubling me, because I had tried (keyword here – tried) to cook it their way. Second, his honest answer: “If you cook rice like this and eat it, it will make you fart.”

And I can’t think of a better compliment for a chef.

So this morning, I woke up around 4:30am (partly because it’s a side effect from my old consultant days and because my son likes to eat at that time) and figured that I’d make pancakes as an act of contrition while my wife and her dad slept. Lo and behold, when they roll out of bed – a platter full of golden pancakes, hot tea, and coffee waiting for a morning feast. Or at least that was the plan.

With my dog, Bingo, in tow I went straight for the kitchen with my jaw fixed in resolute determination. I put out all of my ingredients on the table to get started. Then I had a brilliant idea! After mixing hundreds of bottles of baby formula and seeing how well boiling hot water mixes with the powder, I figured I’d try the same with the pancake mix, which came in a soft plastic, mix-n-shake jug for easy preparation. So I decided to change the way I cooked mid-way. This would be a good time to make sure I reiterated the “head-in-butt” thing.

Well, I poured the boiling hot water into the plastic container and three things happened. First, the plastic began to melt and warp immediately. Yeah, I know. Second, the batter started to cook right there in the bottle. It was honestly a Mr. Wizard moment when I realized what was happening, though I doubt any of those kids used the expletive that I did to Don Herbert. And third, the damn thing was too hot to pick up to do anything about it. End result, I was squeezing out lumps of dry powder, pancake slime, and half-cooked balls of dough into a bowl with my hands wrapped in dish towels. All efforts were made to try to save the pancake mix, truly, including heaps of cold water and furious mixing in a frenzied panic with Bingo barking his encouragement, but alas it was best to put it out of its misery and pour it down the drain.

As I watched the horrible concoction coagulate and back-up my sink drain, I was surprised at the level of failure that I felt. In the old days, I’d shrug my shoulders and go back to work at my computer. But this IS my work and, apparently, I suck it at. And I have no excuses, really, because all Australian TV airs during the day are cooking shows with boring old codgers.

So here I am, eating a cold peanut butter & jelly sandwich with nothing to give my wife and her dad when they wake up. In true consultant fashion, I’ve made a post review checklist of where I went wrong, how to access a better strategy (the Internet of course), and an assessment of the damage. Thankfully, I carefully washed all of the dishes and removed any evidence of the disaster.

Most importantly, I’ve got my cover story prepared, so I can spin the results to make me look as good as possible and then blame it on someone else to avoid the blame. Sorry, Bingo, its time to take one for the team.