I love brownies.
I also love words.
Remember when I told y’all about how I’m all logical and such?
As it turns out, I’ve pretty much always been this way. And today I’m going to tell you a little story inspired by Maj, daughter of Kris.
(People, if you aren’t reading Kris? You should. I like to hoard her in my Google reader and save her for when I can devour lots of her goodness all at once. She is my over-indulgence of choice as far as the blogging world is concerned. Go read her.)
Anyway, back to my story.
Once upon a time, I was 9. Or however old you are when you’re in the 4th grade. And my gifted class was having a Christmas party. (At that point, way back when, we could still call them Christmas parties and didn’t have to call them “Winter gatherings” or “Holiday Hullabaloos” or whatever.)
I volunteered to bring brownies. Or, I should say, I volunteered my mom to bake brownies so that I could take them to school.
One day? My son is going to volunteer to bring brownies to a class gathering, and I have no doubt that what transpires here will very likely occur again in the future, thus proving the point that history does, in fact, repeat itself.
So, yeah. I volunteered my mom to bake brownies. Only she, being older and wiser than me, said that in order to get said brownies baked? We’d have to do it together.
CURSES! WIN!
This meant I got to lick the spoon and the bowl! Woohoo!! Salmonella!
I was all set to start baking these brownies. And my mother got a phone call. And she proceeded to talk on the phone and told me to get everything out that we’d need in order to bake these brownies. So I assembled pans and spoons and bowls and measuring cups on the kitchen table.
And my mom proceeded to talk on the phone. With her back to me and the kitchen.
So I forged ahead with the brownie-baking plan.
I got out the eggs. I measured the water. Or oil. Or whichever it was we were using in our box of Betty Crocker.
I opened the box and poured out the dry ingredients. I gingerly cracked the eggs, careful not to get any shells in the batter. I poured in the liquid.
I WAS SO PROUD OF MYSELF. I was baking brownies! All by my onesies! (Savvy?)
I. Was. A. Golden. Goddess. Of. Brownies.
And then I read the next direction.
“Beat 50 strokes by hand.”
I was…perplexed.
“Beat 50 strokes by hand.”
You can totally see where this is going, right?
I, taking this direction as literally as I’d taken the others (which, let’s face it–“Add 1/4 cup oil” is pretty literal…), walked to the sink. I scrubbed my hands with the focus of a surgeon.
I walked back over to the kitchen table.
And in plunged my right hand. Mixing and beating the brownie batter. With my hand. While my mom was on the phone with her back to me.
And I? Was so, so proud of myself. And happy. As happy as a pig in shit. THIS WAS AWESOME.
Until my mom turned around.
If you’ve ever seen someone do an ACTUAL double take in real life, you should imagine my mother doing one right now. Rapid-fire double take of the mother of a precocious, gifted 9 year old.
“MIRANDA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!?! I have to go. I have to go right now! I have to get off the phone! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!?!!?!?!?”
“But MOM! It said ‘Beat 50 strokes by hand’!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?”
“I’m on stroke 49!!!”
“Miranda! GET A FORK!”
Those? Were the best brownies I’ve ever tasted.