Mara Eastern recently described a lousy Christmas, and it reminded me of something similar that happened to me back around Thanksgiving. After leaving a lengthy comment on her post, I thought, “Hey! This might make a funny blog post!”

Thus the following was born. 🙂

My husband’s been away for work during the week for the past two months, so naturally, he took a few homey things with him to make his hotel room feel less hotelly. One of those things was our very nice can opener. Silly me, I didn’t even realize it (or our salt and pepper shakers) was missing till he’d been gone for a month and I wanted to have chili. But I didn’t want to spend a whole lot on buying a new one since we already had a really nice one. Still, the craving for chili was not to be ignored. And since I needed tomato juice, too, I stopped at Fareway on my way home from work.

After wandering the aisles for a good ten minutes, I finally tracked down their cooking utensils. They had all of one can opener in stock that night, and at $1.97, the price was just right. Still, I had to wonder about its quality. But a trip to Walmart was out of the question because it would make me late picking the boys up from daycare, so I pushed my doubts aside and headed for the check-out.

Twenty minutes later, I’d picked up Cricket and Thumper up from daycare and made it home. It was a blustery night, perfect for chili, and I couldn’t wait to have some. I got the boys in the house, grabbed the beans and hamburger from the basement, and set about making supper. While I waited for the hamburger to thaw, I decided to get the beans opened and drained.

But of course, nothing ever happens easily on a Monday.

I opened the first can of beans without any problems. I daydreamed about the delicious chili I would soon be eating; I could already smell the chili powder and the cooking meat. I could almost taste the soup’s spicy tang. I could almost feel the tomato juice’s velvet touch as I swallowed imaginary spoonful after imaginary spoonful.

But halfway through opening the second can, reality came crashing back upon me. Part of the can opener snapped off as I turned the hand crank. The whole thing fell apart in my hands.

Well, crap (and many other colorful words). Now what the heck was I supposed to do?

By this point, the closest store was closed for the night. I considered using a church key to open the rest of the cans, but quickly discarded the idea. There was no way I’d be able to shake all those beans out of the tiny little holes a church key would make. Even if I could have shaken them all out, it’d have taken all night. Too bad I hadn’t been opening the tomato juice – then I’d have been fine.

*sigh*

I got my chili eventually, after spending a few more dollars to buy a decent-quality can opener, but I’m still annoyed about the stupid cheap one that didn’t even last five minutes. I hate wasting money like that, even though part of me knew it wouldn’t last. And now that it’s freezing cold here again, chili is starting to sound really good for supper tonight… 🙂

Have you had equipment malfunctions ruin a much-anticipated meal? How did you cope?

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2016 is treating you right! 🙂

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