MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

If the verb “to emasculate” defines the act of chopping off a guy’s nuts, what verb do you use to describe getting your ovaries snipped? By surgeons who learned surgery through the Wii? In front of the kitchen sink?

Last Monday, Anne and I randomly decided to cook something for the The Man Blog guys, girls, and friends using my mom’s shiny kitchen. Not that the TMB dudes need to get fatter than they already are, but I figured that it’s high time I learned how to cook. You see, I’ve always thought of myself as a closet housewife. I may be all, “You can’t make me give up my life and career for you! *snap snap snap*” but I have this feeling that once I settle down, I’ll most likely become a devoted wife and a suburban, pot-dealing soccer mom. Well, maybe minus the pot-dealing.

I’m weirdly traditional like that. Shut up.

It occurred to me, however, that there’s one tiny problem to this vision I have of my future self: I don’t know the first thing about being a closet housewife. My idea of cleaning is hiding all my crap under the bed so that my mom, the ultimate neat freak, doesn’t get stroke every time she pokes her head in my room. I can’t cook. I hate kids and toddlers. I hold babies like I hold cats – very awkwardly. I can sort of sew. Oh and once, I picked up crochet as a hobby and attempted to make my then-boyfriend a blanket using extra-soft, 100% cotton yarn I bought from the States. I wasn’t even 1/4ths done with it when I get bored with crochet and moved onto something else.

I can, however, analyze a poem, write songs with no lyrics, and defend my wanton shopping habits using John Maynard Keynes’ paradox of thrift. Other than that, I got nothing.

So in preparation for My Future Self as a Closet Housewife five, ten, twenty years from now, I met up with Anne, Coco, and Fritz at Hypermarket to buy ingredients for chicken casserole and steak. Actually, THEY bought the ingredients; I was coming from The Land of Long Taxi Lines (Megamall) and reached them as they were paying for stuff at the cash register. Yeah, I’m very useful to have around like that.

An hour later we were at my house – the women in the kitchen and the men off gallavanting somewhere. I was to cook the steak, Anne was to make the chicken casserole. I realized too late that I didn’t know the first thing about preparing the marinade, but a quick text message to my mom saved my ass and made me look like I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately, I gave away my kitchen n00bness when I told Anne cheerfully, “The marinade’s done!” Her expert eyes looked over at what I did and asked if I rubbed the marinade into the meat. To which I replied, “You mean, I have to touch it? With my bare hands?” I stifled an “Eww gross!” and proceeded to do as she said.

Once the marinade was all massaged into the meat, I offered to help Anne with the casserole, who then gave me the potatoes and told me to peel them. I’ve never peeled a potato in my life BUT I’ve read enough books and watched enough movies on World War II to know that peeling potatoes involved some knife action of sorts. It’s all about imitating the hand gestures, see.

I had barely begun peeling my first potato ever when I noticed that Fritz was leaning on the kitchen counter, snickering at us wimmin. Anne told me that he always does that when she cooks and that I should just ignore him like you would ignore a fly buzzing about your ear. But I didn’t want to ignore him – I wanted to swat him away from the kitchen with a flyswatter. It’s not nice to make fun of my potato-peeling skillz while I’m holding a sharp object. :(

Finally, Fritz came up to me and said that I was indeed peeling the potato all wrong. “This is how you do it,” he said, with a hint of condescension. I handed him the knife and stood there watching Fritz seriously pwn my ass at potato peeling. Never have I felt so emasculated before. Except instead of balls I had ovaries that were slowly getting whittled down to their atomic numbers by the potato-peeling knife. I know that this is the age of gender equality and all, but come on. Men shouldn’t be better at peeling potatoes than me! That’s just not how the world is supposed to work. T_T

A couple of hours later, dinner was ready and the guests have arrived. I noticed that the comments people made on my steak had something to do with how near or far they were seated from me. Fritz said it was okay, but it would have been better if the steak were grilled instead of baked. He was far from stabbing reach. Luis, who was at the far end of the table, mumbled something about how he likes his steak really bloody. Penny and Coco were smart enough to just eat and stay quiet. Jayvee, on the other hand, immediately began praising my steak after he took his first bite. Guess he must have noticed that my knife was poised for action.

I gotta admit, that wasn’t so bad for a first attempt. But I think I’ll do the cooking alone next time, just so I don’t embarrass myself in front of the experts. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make chili con carne for a high school reunion tonight.