I didn't. But I could.

If eating a tub of cucumber sauce with a spoon is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Not exactly an enlightened question...

Do single-serving gravy packets exist? Like catsup or mustard, but gravy?

Just a quick peek into my world...

Over-eating for symmetry's sake

I remove 1 egg from the old carton, and 1 egg from the new carton... I feel a little mental push to eat 3 eggs this morning, just so we'll have an even number of eggs.

I resisted! Yes! A personal victory! :::and the crowd goes wild:::

Too easily contented

Why is it, when I have a good book to read, my bills are paid and my belly full, all other ambition seems to melt away?

I mean, how will I do anything Wikipedia-worthy at this rate?

"MmMm... Turbulent"

The cat has decided that she no longer cares for wet food - maybe there's just something off about this batch? She'll lap up the savory juices and then eat a few bites, and that's it.

I am washing her dish - the dishwasher is running at the same time, and the smell of the soapy dishwasher liquid is hard to miss. It smells like a mixture of bleach and semen - neither smell is very pleasant. I've tried four different brands, and they all smell the same.

The smell also takes me back to 1990, when I was a dishwasher at a Grand Canyon cafeteria. We had this handy dish-sprayer gizmo that hung down from the ceiling and let you spray off all the large chunks of food before sending them through the auto-rinser. There was some sort of solution automatically added to the water, and it has that same bleachy-seedy smell.
.

One of the most disgusting things you have to put up with as a dishwasher is when people put out their cigarettes in the gooey goo of eggs over easy. The stub isn't so bad, it's the ashes.

Since my hands were wet all day, I'd end up getting all sorts of little cuts and scratches on my hands and arms. Since my hands were wet all day - with water and the solution - the cuts were very slow to heal. The spray went all over the place, and within a couple of hours of starting work, I would be thoroughly damp. By the end of the day, even my underwear was damp. I only had the job for two months, and somehow I never got around to getting a waterproof apron. There were no stores that sold them nearby, it was 85 miles to the nearest town.

We wore uniforms provided by the company. We wore white shirts and the pants had a pattern of tiny black and white squares on them - they looked gray from a distance. One of my coworkers looked exactly like Popeye's long lost brother. He was a seasonal employee, he spent half the year in Alaska working in various fisheries. Nice guy. No teeth.

The dishes were very hot when they came out of the auto-rinser, but your hands toughen up to it. Even then, you have to let the silverware pieces cool for at least 30 seconds before you grab em. Butter knives are especially hot.

There were two different rooms - the dishes/silver room and the pan room. The pan room was neat to work in because you could save money on food. This was food from the pots, pans, and steam trays, untouched by customers. So at the end of the breakfast period, they'd bring back a whole pan of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and so on. A big guy named Charlie usually worked the pan room, unfortunately.

TV Diner?

Another entry in the "I'm sure this already exists somewhere" files...

There are all sorts of sports bars out there, where folks can get together with other fans and watch sporting events live.

Why not TV Diners? (Get it? It's like TV Dinner, but not. I slay me.) You could get together with other fans and watch House, or CSI Miami, or American Idol, or what have you.

Instead of the lonely activity where you lie mindlessly on the couch, you could watch your favorite shows with a group of other people, talking and laughing while chowing down on fries and chicken strips - or hey, why not a salad?

There could be contests and trivia during the commercial breaks, and all-night events during marathons. Character look-alike contests! You could cancel your cable tv service and only watch TV while at the diner. You'd watch less TV, and when you did it would be a social activity.

There could be different segments of the diner - Poppy stuff like American Idol in this corner, while The Discovery Channel is running in another corner. A nostalgia corner where TV Land is running old re-runs of 90210. I'd go!

Cooking with Mike

I've been hooked on these sandwiches for a couple of months now - I tell you what, they're the damn tastiest frozen-microwavable breakfast sandwich you will encounter in this life.

Get thee to the grocery, and hook yourself up with at least four boxes. (They're 2 to a box) You'll save yourself a trip back to the store if you buy four boxes. I'm just thinking about your fuel economy here - You'll thank me.

Step 1: Acquire Jimmy Dean Muffin Sandwich - Bacon, Egg and Cheese variety.

Step 2: Separate sandwich into its component parts - everything as a single layer.

Step 3: Microwave all parts for 2.5 minutes on 'Defrost' setting.

Step 4: Microwave the egg only on High for 20 seconds.
(This is the secret step they don't tell you on the box)

Step 5: Assemble sandwich and microwave for 1 minute.

Step 6: Let stand for 30 seconds.

Step 7: Devour.

Note: About every tenth box or so, you'll encounter a sandwich with two or three times the normal bacon - A blessed plethora of bacon goodness! Rejoice, and consider yourself smiled upon for that day. That would be a good day to buy a lottery ticket.