very funny, dawn.

Even though I try to hide it, my close friends and family know that I am not exactly Betty Crocker. Sure, i can follow a recipe when i want to - but cooking is not my favorite thing to do. So, when dawn gave me a list of things she bought for the boys to eat, I was relieved. No planning for the meals. great. just my kinda thing. when she was showing me around the kitchen, she pointed to her rice cooker like three times (it must be her new favorite gadget or something) and kept telling me how easy it was and that camden loves rice. she said "just follow the instructions - it's so easy." so, i didnt plan ahead. if it was that easy i could just wing it, right? well, i threw the encore meal for the boys into the microwave, programmed it for ten minutes and pulled out the rice cooker and instructions. now, please understand that i saw this booklet on the counter at the beginning of the week that says, "Flavor Scenter Steamer Plus". When i read it, i put a mental emphasis on "Scenter" and thought it was one of those potpourri simmerers that just happened to double as a rice cooker. how appetizing could that possibly be? wouldnt the rice take on the candle-like scent? or maybe the steam from the rice heats the scented oil? anyway, i put the machine on a counter near an outlet, got out the rice, and opened the instruction manual. it was crazy. there are twelve parts that needed to be labeled on page one. twelve. I am a microwave kinda girl. open door, insert food, close door, press start. i couldnt figure out where the water was supposed to go so i decided to skip that part and read ahead. i skimmed to page 10 where it said how long to cook the rice. 52 minutes. FIFTY-TWO MINUTES! no way. who has time for that? by the time i had gotten to that point in the Flavor Scenter Steamer Plus survivor's guide my microwaved meat was already dinging. i put the pieces of the gadget back together (probably not stacked in the proper order) and decided that dawn can deal with her potpourri-oil-wax-rice-take-forever-to-cook gadget all by herself. for tonight, however, rice was not an option.