A Culinary Review

I think it is almost winter. It was 40 degrees at the Mansion at 5:00 p.m. Note to Self: find the mask knit cap again, put on some pants already, and carry a tissue during that 30-minute walk. My face was OH SO COLD. It, like me, had no feeling. Like an unfortunate Botox faux pas, perhaps. But right now I am sitting pretty. OH SO PRETTY, with my giant vat of Hot & Sour Soup. Mmm...I nuked it to about 560 degrees. It's kind of like a vat of boiling oil. The delicious kind.

This soup was probably not the most scathingly brilliant idea. You see, I partook of the school lunch for the first time in several years. It was chili and peanut butter sandwich day, by cracky! With a slice of American cheese, unlimited saltines, a chocolate milk that was not even spoiled, and a little cup of pineapple wedges.

I had forgotten that school chili is a bit spicy. That concoction tried to eat its way out of my stomach this afternoon. The Parkingspacestealer said the same thing happened to her. She was 'dying' after lunch. Well, I know for a fact that this was not true. If she had been dying, she would have demanded an ambulance ride again, just like that time she fell off her wheelie chair and broke her butt. So perhaps she was just a wee bit uncomfortable. I, on the other hand, was in the throes of agony from that Alien-blood chili digesting my smooth muscle tissue where the esophagus hooks up with the stomach. Thank the Gummi Mary, my bestest buddy Mabel had some Pepsid in a baggie that was coated with pink residue. She told me it was Pepsid, anyway. So of course I ingested it. Mabel wouldn't steer me wrong. And it worked! No more gnawing, buring pain. Now I am healed, and having Hot & Sour Soup. I wonder if Mabel and her magic bag of medicinal tricks make Mansion-calls.

And while I'm reviewing the school lunch program, let's discuss that peanut butter sandwich. The last one I remember was delicious. Today...not so much. It used to be on fresh white bread, the peanut butter. And its constant companion: syrup. So much syrup, in fact, that you had to be careful. The teachers were constantly warning each other, "Look out, you're gonna drip." Because we're like cops, don't you know, and look out for our own. But today, my sammich was on the dry side. The bread was too thick. And a bit stale. And Mr. Peanut Butter might as well have been all by his lonesome, for all the sugary syrupy goodness that my taste buds detected. Then the coach came out with his tray, bit into his sammich, and I saw at least a half-inch of ooey gooey peanut butter and syrup. Hmpf! Somebody's playin' favorites in the lunch line. But at least I've never gotten the rock-hard, charred chicken nuggets and a stem in every green bean serving like Mr. S. They save those things for him. He swears it's because 9 years ago, he gave somebody's daughter a low grade. Guess he learned HIS lesson the hard way. Through his stomach.

I really must go now. My Hot & Sour Soup is calling me. Hear it?
"Eat me, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom...EAT ME!"

At least I think it's the soup.