I Immediately Regret This Decision

If the scores of people waiting to crowd onto the T with bags roughly the size of a ten-year old didn't tip you off, this is Thanksgiving weekend, which means most people have four full days of freedom. For law students, of course, this means that we have a turkey break during LOCKDOWN.

Because I'll be spending a lot of time at home over the next few days, and should get up from the LOCKDOWN every once in a while or risk succumbing to chair sores, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to do something of myself and cook.

I know. You're cringing. I'm cringing too. Who can forget that time sophomore year when i tried to cook spaghetti and it came out black? I'm the kind of guy who can somehow set cereal on fire.

Just the other day, in fact, I tried to cook myself some chicken. And it was a little bit of a catastrophe.

See, the culinarily challenged should, if faced with the necessity of concocting a meal -- and I stress the word necessity -- should stick to the bare minimum. The less steps, the better. Avoid fire, if possible. Even the microwave should be used only if a fire extinguisher and a responsible adult are withing screaming distance.

What turned the mundane task of cooking some chicken into a misadventure was my hubris. See, I tried to be ambitious. I tried to overreach. And, just like Icarus, I flew a little too close to the sun.

Usually, when I cook chicken, I heat a little bit of oil, let it smoke, turn down the heat, put the chicken in the pan, and presto. Chicken.

This time, I wanted to be ambitious and marinated the chicken.

My first thought, I've made a huge mistake.

My second thought, what the bleep?

Within seconds of setting the chicken down on the pan, my kitchen looked like on of those airport smoking lounges where you can't see anything above the waist. There was so much smoke, I couldn't tell if there was a fire. The smoke detector, of course, went batshit insane, broadcasting for the whole world to know just how epic a fail I was as a cook. There are few things more undignified than a grown man standing on a chair, frantically waving a magazine under a smoke detector. Thank God the firefighters didn't come racing in. I can't think of anything more embarrassing than greeting the city's bravest with a shrug that sends a blackened chicken breast from my pan to the floor, where my "dinner" would crumble like ashes.

And yet, like a dog who won't stop jumping at an electric fence, this weekend I will attempt to cook meals beyond my usual staples of quesadillas and pasta. I have bought potatoes. Peppers. Onions. Other vegetables I barely recognize. Heck, I even bought another pan, and will attempt the unthinkable -- at least to me -- and try to cook two things at the same time.

When you come back from break, if you find a smoldering hole where my apartment used to be, it will be because my attempt at making a salad probably failed.

Pray for me and my neighbors.