Dammit, Man.

I had hoped to have before and after pictures of the house for every little thing I did.  But Karla quickly responded with a firm and unequivocal "NO".

We have since come to a compromise; I could take all the pictures I wanted --- then submit them for the wife's approval.  Pfft.....Whatever.....Fine.

The Bathroom: Needless to say the bathroom is completely off limits for pictures.  I find that disappointing since I felt no one would appreciate a picture of a clean bathtub unless they had witnessed the nasty mess it was before.  But, since I know it's pointless to argue, I'm going to have to ask you to use your imagination.  Or, in most cases, if you are a single man with your own place just go into your bathroom and look at the bathtub.  You see all that grimy nastiness caked onto your tub?  Yup, that's what I tried to clean.

First off, I should have read the directions for the product I was attempting to use on the tub.  On the back of the bottle of Lime-A-Way it clearly states, in bold letters WEAR RUBBER GLOVES.  Further down the bottle, also in big bold letters is the word DANGER: Contains sulfamic acid.

This would explain why my ungloved hands were burning afterwards.  What really sucked about the whole rotten endeavor was that the tub looked no cleaner than when I started.  I put in a lot of elbow grease and got absolutely no where.  Well, I wouldn't say no where; I did see streaks that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bathtub was once, in fact, white.

Which leads me to wonder why bathtubs are made white in the first place.  Why don't the manufacturers make more brown or black bathtubs that hide the scum?  That way, like a carpet, a lazy ass like me can happily continue my blissful ignorance thanks to the power of camouflage.  "Nope, doesn't look dirty......Let's move on."

But, no, I got the white bath tub and wood floors.  So I get to relive this joy on an almost daily basis.

I found out later that Lime-A-Way is not used for the bathtub; Karla uses a product call The Works.  While The Works does not advise that I use gloves, it still comes with a precautionary statement about eye and skin irritations.  I believe I will look for an alternative, a natural way, to clean the bathroom.

So, on to the next disaster.

The Spaghetti Fiasco:  Cooking spaghetti seems simple enough; pretty straight forward, wouldn't you think?  Yeah, right.

I went to the store to pick up what I needed for supper that evening.  But instead of getting the traditional flavor Prego I opted to try a new flavor.  I got a jar of Italian sausage and garlic.

So when I started supper everything went well enough.  The hamburger (very greasy, I might add.....blech) cooked up fine and the water was boiling for the spaghetti noodles.  Everything went downhill after that.

First off, I didn't plan on the Italian sausage sauce to be thicker than the original.  I quickly realized I didn't have enough sauce for the hamburger I cooked.  Fortunately, I found a half a can of traditional Prego and mixed it in.  Unfortunately, my concoction was still a thick, meaty, mass......Crap.  It will just have to do.

The water came to a boil and I open the package of spaghetti noodles.  Without thinking I just dumped that whole thing into the pot.  What I didn't take into consideration was the pot I was using wasn't big enough for the three pounds of noodles that I just dumped into it.  (I didn't realize I had that many noodles until I read the label afterwards.)

So I ended up with about a half a package of noodles just sitting on top of the pot. Now, any rationally thinking person would just remove the extra and save it for another time.  Instead, the cooking neophyte panicked.  I took my wooden spoon and smashed the noodles, forcing them to fit into the pot.

Yes sir, if there were ever an Iron Chef competition between me an the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef, I fear the Swede would kick my ass.....OOOMM, Bort-Bort!!!!!

For a moment I was pleased; I got all the noodles to fit.  But there were two things that I didn't take into account.  First, noodles expand, and panic mode returned when I saw the noodles expanding over the top of the boiling pot.  Second, when I crammed the noodles into the pot, the noodles at the bottom burned and stuck to the surface of said pot.

I was losing control of the situation.  I wedged my wooden spoon into the pot and attempted to stir.  I grimaced as I could feel the noodles, a lot of noodles, stuck to the bottom of the pot.

So I resorted to constantly stirring the noodles to keep the those on the bottom from burning.  Making matters worse, the noodles at the top of the pot still weren't cooked.  This is where I perfected my flip and stir technique.  It splattered boiling water everywhere; and I did get burnt a couple of times, but I managed to cook all of the noodles.  I was pleased, disaster averted ------ until I tried to pour the noodles into the colander.

Once again I realized that I had grossly miscalculated when I dumped the noodles into the colander.  Only half of what I cooked fit inside; the rest ended up all over the sink.......Shit.

Even worse, about a fourth of the noodles were burnt to the bottom of the pot.  With the pot turned upside down,  the noodles just dangled there helplessly.  I could almost hear them asking, "Damn, brother, what in the hell are you doing?"

I ended up digging a pair of scissors out of the drawer and cutting loose what I could and, yes, I'm sure it looked stupid.  Here is the proof of the damage:

Man.....I suck.  But, dinner was served.  Now to see if it's edible.

My son Toby has always had fairly good manners.  So when I asked him how it tasted he said, "It's okay."  (He's all into that adolescent brevity thing)

But, having known Toby all his life, I knew that "It's okay" actually meant, "It kinda sucks"

My daughter Tera, on the other hand, is very blunt.  If you don't want to know the truth, don't ask her for her opinion.

But, unfortunately, I did need to know.  I don't want to make this again if nobody likes it.  So I braced myself and asked, "So, pumpkin, I tried something different, what do you think?"

Tera didn't even bat an eye, "Well, I'm not barfing....So that's a good thing."

Thank you, pumpkin.  This was a warm and fuzzy, heartfelt moment that I will treasure for the rest of my life......Hugs and puppies for everybody.

In the end, I learned two valuable lessons.  One, I need to plan out my cooking adventures, (yes, for me, they are adventures) a little better, or, go back to the crock pot.  And two, NEVER, EVER, EVER, under any circumstances, deviate from the way mom cooks the meal....The kids will rebel.

All things considered, it wasn't a bad day.....I mean, I didn't burn the house down, right?