Why I should be demoted as chief cook and bottle-washer

We returned home from church at about 2:00 p.m.  I immediately set about cleaning up my kitchen.  Once the dishes were all washed, I peeled potatoes in preparation for dinner so we could have mashed potatoes with the roast cooking in the Crock Pot.  Then I decided to cut up the cantaloupe.  Then I thought I should clean and cup the tops off the strawberries.  I followed that by washing and chopping a head of iceberg lettuce and two bunches of Romaine lettuce.  I boiled three eggs.  Then, as a final flourish to my exemplary homemaking, I decided to bake banana bread using my Martha Stewart cookbook.

My husband suggested that I go to a movie while he took the kids to football conditioning.  We talked about it and I decided on a 5:00 p.m. showing of “The Proposal.”  (I had to work tonight at 9 p.m.)  Perfect.

While the bread was baking, I rushed upstairs to help my daughter clean her disaster of a bedroom.  It was truly horrible, but we managed to find a place to stash all her stuffed animals.  My secret hope was that I would find her missing Nintendo DS.  Which I did.  Because I rock.  It was zippered into a small backpack which was shoved into the bottom of a toybox under a dozen stuffed animals.  It’s been missing for weeks, maybe months.

The stove buzzer rang.  My son hollered upstairs to let me know.  I ran downstairs, pulled out the banana bread.  It looked perfect.  Then I lost my mind.  Completely.

I lost my mind because I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 p.m., the time I had intended to be already on my way to the movie.  So, without further ado, I got out a cooling rack so I could let the banana bread cool.   Then I stupidly decided to remove it from the pan by dumping it upside down.  The loaf fell into a steaming clump of banana bread onto the rack.  The bottom of the pan retained the bottom of the bread.  Oops.

Then I realized I hadn’t boiled the potatoes to accompany the roast.  In fact, I had no idea it was so late.  I’d been lost in a time warp of stuffed animals and old stickers and markers and doll clothes and blankets.

So, in one fell swoop, I lost my Suzy Homemaker badge.  I ran upstairs to inform my husband that I didn’t get the potatoes cooked or mashed and that I ruined the banana bread but just leave it because it might be okay anyway and bye I have to run or I’m going to be late and sorry I didn’t get dinner quite done.

The movie (“The Proposal”)  was good.

When I got home, I cut the banana bread into chunks.  I made mashed potatoes.

Another weekend gone in flash.  And I handled it with my usual measure of grace and competence.