Out of the Griddle and Into the Fire

At our house, Mark is the dinner cook and he does a fine job of it. I am the breakfast cook, and I'm not horrible. Not good, not horrible. The food is usually edible. My problem is that I need to be left alone in the kitchen. If one thing interrupts me when I'm preparing breakfast, it all goes to hell.

Our new stove has a griddle that sits in the center of the range. It comes in handy for all sorts of things that need a large, flat surface to cook on. On Friday morning I was using the griddle for pancakes. I ladled out the batter in six little discs on the griddle and just as I was about to flip them over, the dogs started "arguing". As I yelled at the dogs to shut the fuck up, the pancake I was flipping over slid right off the pancake flipper thing and onto the stove. The more I tried to maneuver it back onto the griddle, the deeper it slid under the burner grate. In my frantic moves to try and pull the errant pancake out from the spot it had wedged itself into, I knocked another pancake off the griddle, and under another burner grate. This caused an explosion of cursing. The most foul and filthy of cursing. I finally turned off the gas, put on oven mitts, and removed the grates allowing access to the pancakes underneath. I flipped them back up onto the griddle. Now my timing of breakfast was all screwed up, so I tried to make up for it by reaching over and hitting the brew button on the Keurig coffee maker. No reason not to have the coffee ready before the pancakes are done. So, I stood there in front of the stove fussing with the pancakes, trying to make them look palatable, when I noticed the sound of water gurgling. I glanced over towards the coffee maker. I had forgotten to put a mug under the Keurig. Hot, brown coffee was running all over the kitchen counter. Very strong coffee, just as I like it... only not in a mug. When I had cleaned everything up and made a new mug of coffee for myself, I served breakfast to Mark in the dining room. Mark, sitting across from me, stuffed a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.

"Gack! It's not cooked in the middle. This pancake is not cooked all the way through."

And with that, Mark pushed his plate of blueberry pancakes away and announced that he'll just have some coffee. We had bowls of cereal Saturday morning.