Kitchen Bomb

A couple of weeks back I vowed to live simpler in the year 2013, and since then I have been making strides to do so. I went through countless papers, began making a large pile of clothes to donate, looked into finding a place to re-sell old textbooks collecting dust, and most notably (as I spend so much time in the kitchen) cleaned out the refrigerator, one large cabinet and my two small kitchen shelves.

Trying to find a way to rearrange things in my kitchen was tough. I had everything sitting out on the counters for what seemed like forever, and I just stood in the middle, re-evaluating the space. I ultimately decided on this:

-Baking materials up high, as I use them the least

-Tupperware (massive supply cut in half) in the middle

-Cookbooks, spices and my highly-used olive oil/salt/pepper lowest for easy access

And on my shelves:

-Extra bottles of olive oil/cooking wine/vinegar/etc.

-Other high use items (peanut butter, apple sauce) and everyday breakfast food

For a few days, everything seemed great. I was liking the new layout and it felt good to be more organized than usual. Then, last Thursday, the unthinkable happened.

I had had a long day at work. I stayed until about 6:00 and then headed over to the gym to attend a zumba toning class. I got back home around 8:00 pm, and since I hadn’t eaten dinner, decided to just whip up this salad quickly, as I had prepared all the ingredients the previous night for dinner and had leftovers.  Realizing I had used all of the dressing, I began gathering my ingredients. I grabbed my olive oil, salt and pepper from their new spot; grabbed the Dijon mustard from the frig, and finally, headed over to my “pretty shelf” to grab the red wine vinegar. As I was reaching, my hand lightly brushed one of the other bottles, and all of a sudden I see (practically in slow motion, let me add) a bottle of sherry cooking wine start to fall. I instinctively reached out to catch it, but before I could – CRASH! – a teeny bottle of expensive olive oil hit the floor, splintered into a million glass shards, and exploded its greasy contents everywhere. Seeing the flying glass shards, I closed my eyes, but before they were completely shut – CRASH! – the bottle of sherry cooking wine exploded too. And then, it was just like little cooking liquid bombs exploding. Rice wine vinegar – CRASH! White cooking wine – CRASH! Canola oil – CRASH! But this last one, this one was the kicker. I was lucky in a sense, because this bottle was plastic. But it’s bulky shape made it trip the one item that could make this mess even more disgusting – oatmeal, whose lid flew off as it hit the floor, sending its pale flakes to their fate - into the sea of olive oil/vinegar/cooking wine/glass shards to drown.

I just stood there. After the first explosion, I realized there was nothing that I could do and just stood there, waiting for the attack to end. And when it did, let me tell you, my ENTIRE floor, and some of the living room and basement platform, was covered, COVERED in crap.

Then, I started to laugh. Hysterically. I’m not sure what was funny about this, because it took three towels, a broom, half a bottle of Mr. Clean and a good hour to clean this up. But even now, writing this, I am cracking up. I guess sometimes when you have to choose between frustrated tears and hysterical laughter, the latter ends up being the better choice.

So anyway, I suppose I am back to the drawing board when it comes to my kitchen space. Hopefully I choose a bit more wisely this time around! And oh yeah, I did finally enjoy my salad around 9:30. A late dinner indeed.