I've made no secret of the fact on this blog that I'm a disaster in the kitchen. If there was a way to burn water, I would do it. After tonight, I now have no doubt that my ability to screw up anything remotely culinary in nature extends to the kitchen sink as well.Through a lot of trial and error or mostly error, I've learned that there are certain things that you just don't leave sitting in the sink, unless, of course, you like seeing your food come back up. The most obvious ones are ice cream and milk. The least obvious one are chicken noodle soup and mashed potatoes. They curdle like nobody's business.
I now have one more food item to add to that list: brownies. I made them this weekend. They weren't half bad, if I do say so myself. However, they stuck to the pan. I tried scraping the remnants of the brownies off last night, but after a few minutes I realized that they weren't coming off with anything other than a blow torch. Instead of just throwing the pan away and buying another $3 one from Dollar General, I got the bright idea to soak the pan in the sink. I thought that hot water would loosen the brownies over night.
Oh, it loosened the brownies all right. It also created a smell so sour that it's a miracle I still have paint on the kitchen walls and hairs in my nose. The odor wasn't perceptible at first. Then I disturbed the water. Five seconds later I was standing in the corner of the kitchen, clutching my stomach and dry heaving.
After my stomach stopped spazzing, I eyed the sink from a safe distance. I knew I had to do something with the pan. Regardless of whether I washed it or trashed it, I would have to come into contact with the water that had bubbled up from the depths of hell. Taking a deep breath, I did the only thing that I knew how to do at the time. I zipped my sweatshirt all the way up and yanked it over my nose. I looked like that guy from the Fat Albert cartoons, only in reverse:
That worked for about a minute. Then I needed to breathe. If I had any sense, I would have taken that breath on the other side of the room, but didn't. I took it right over the sink. As you can imagine, the sour smell still permeated the air in that area, and the gagging began again.
Eventually, my stomach settled enough that I was able to finish washing out the pan. I should have stopped then, plopped my butt on the couch, and not moved until Idol was over. Once again I didn't do what I should have done. Instead, my oxygen-deprived brain pulled down the sweatshirt and began rinsing the dishes on the other side of the sink.
The first few bowls were no big deal. They didn't contain anything worse than dog food crumbs. Bowl Number 4, however, was actually Bowl Number 666. Apparently, I had forgotten to wash out an ice cream bow a couple of days agol. Then, to add insult to injury, I had buried that bowl beneath Bowls 1 through 3. The odor and curdled nastiness that resulted rivaled that of the devil brownies. All it took was one whiff, and I was running for the half-bathroom right off the kitchen.
After sacrificing the roast beef sub that I had for lunch to the porcelain gods, I ran upstairs, grabbed my container of Vick's, opened it, stuck two fingers into the ointment, and scooped up a giant size dose of mentholatum. I didn't just rub it under my nose. I piled it on like my life depended on it. I'm sure I was a greasy sight.
Since the Vick's allowed me to finish washing the bowl, I'm considering buying a tub to keep next to the sink, right next to my bottle of Dawn and the kitchen sponge. I've also vowed to (1) never make brownies again unless I have a disposable pan, (2) rinse my ice cream bowls immediately after consumptions, (3) use paper or Styrofoam plates and bowls whenever possible, and (4) wash dishes more often.
On top of that, I'm scratching coroner, crime scene investigator, crime scene cleaner, garbage truck driver, plumber, undertaker, professional pooper scooper, spoiled milk tester, and any other smelly profession off my list of potential fallback careers. While I could single-handedly make Vick's stock soar by pursuing those professions, I don't think my olfactory nerves could handle it.
