I’m a lousy cook.
I suppose the first step towards getting help is admitting that you have a problem, but I’m not completely sure I want help since I live in a town with plenty of cholesterol-laden fast food options. The temptation is too great, the service is too fast, and, sadly, most of these places already know my “usual.” (Yep, I’m that predictable.)
Predictability is a funny thing. On the one hand, routine is good. I wake up at the same time every day, proceed to my “usual” coffee shop, and drive to work. I check the mail every afternoon when I arrive home. I pay my bills on time. (Okay, that one’s not so much a routine as a necessity. Utility companies tend to leave your electricity and water on when you pay them on time. It’s just a good habit; I highly recommend it if you have trouble seeing in the dark.)
Here’s where predictability becomes…unpredictable. Let’s say I decide to alter my routine…say, by ordering a latte instead of a regular old cup o’ joe. Besides the fact that they have to find the guy with the keys to open the register since they already pre-prepared my order when they saw my car coming, they’re also going to ask me, “You feeling okay today? That’s not your usual.” Meanwhile, the line behind me is getting long and I’m going to be on the road five minutes later than usual.
A chain of events has now been set into motion that, according to Doc Brown logic, could seriously alter the course of history and unravel the space-time continuum as we all know it.
(Okay…so, maybe I would only end up altering my day just a tad. Just a tad.)
Let’s say that in that extra five minutes on this particular morning, a truckload of chickens overturns on the highway, and the goofy birds begin escaping in feather-flying flocks. Well, whaddya know…I happen to be on the highway as the first escapees begin waddling towards a ditch. (They didn’t want to cross the road. They were tired of hearing the joke.)
Let’s say that I’m feeling compassionate and I decide to rescue some of the chickens–say, a dozen, because eggs are packaged by the dozen and I’d like to maintain some sense of normalcy–and I shove them in the car (buckling them into their seat belts for safety, of course) and take them back to the house before heading back to work.
Let’s say that the chickens spend the day hanging out at my place, leaving scrambled eggs all over the patio (sun plus concrete…this is the South) and I find out when I get home that I’m being evicted for violating some long-forgotten city ordinance about barnyard animals after a neighbor, who happens to be allergic to eggs, makes a complaint.
Oh, and I have to take the chickens with me.
Let’s say that I can’t find a place to live right away–because, let’s face it, no one wants to take in a crazy chicken lady–and I have to resort to figuring out a way to subsist off of my only earthly possessions…the chickens.
Then, I remember that I’m a lousy cook.
All this because I ordered a latte.
(Either that, or it’s all because I have a frighteningly wild imagination.)
*No chickens–or eggs–were harmed in the writing of this story. And, no, I don’t have a clue which one came first.