When a Man Makes Dinner...Does Anybody Ever Eat?

       My Zoom meeting happened to coincide with the dinner hour. What to do? Oh yeah there is another capable human here, a man, who has been eating dinner his whole life and presumably could put a meal together. 

      “Sure, no problem,” he assured me. 

Problem. Well, problems because there were to be three items for dinner.

Just to back up, I had already decided on the menu—oven-roasted chicken quarters, a potato and veg. So, in order to assure we would eat at 6.30 I had removed the required chicken from the freezer, thawed it, placed it on a cookie sheet and sprinkled it with seasoning. Then to assure it would be thoroughly cooked I placed it in the oven, set the cook time, start time and temperature.

I had no desire for a boiled potato so I cooked several, mashed them, boiled some eggs, put all that together as a potato salad and put it in the fridge.

Then, since I still had time before my meeting, I unloaded the dishwasher and set the table and folded the laundry.

My Zoom link came to life and the meeting proceeded as the Geek gods have decreed they must: awkward and bumpy and barely audible. Meeting completed; I turned my attention to the kitchen where my husband was topping up his drink. That done, he stood staring into the open freezer expecting the frozen peas to hop out on their own apparently.

“Where are the peas?”

It has come to my attention that it is my duty to keep a running inventory of every single thing in our fridge and freezer and its location therein; whether the dishes in the dishwasher are washed or just rinsed; and enough other such mundanities to make one wonder how female brains don’t explode by the 10-years-in mark.

“In the bottom lower right,” I patiently replied. 

I finished off an email related to my meeting and poured myself a glass of wine, glancing at the stove where the peas should have been happily bubbling by now.

Hubby appeared at my side, looking at the stove as well. You would think that the fact that the peas were sitting stone cold on the back burner while the front burner blazed bright red would set off an alarm bell in there. If it did it was the wrong alarm.

“Where’s my phone? I can’t find it,” he almost wailed.

I was tempted to ask if he had checked the road, or the deep fryer. Or maybe the lake because, you know, of past experiences. I just pointed to the stove and suggested he move the peas. He went back to searching for his phone and eventually I suggested he drain the peas because it only takes them a minute to heat.

Then I shut off the oven, put the meat and potato salad on the table and sat down. He served the peas proudly.

So, thanks to my husband we had a green component to our dinner, which I would have to admit was at least as successful as any Zoom meeting I have attended.

Tomorrow night I plan to barbeque burgers. I will put my husband in charge of serving the mustard. (Note to husband: top shelf in the refrigerator door.)