Pot Boiler

Cartooning can be hazardous to your kitchen. I know because today it very nearly was.

I had been working on the scripts for a new comic strip when the incident happened. It  had just turned one O’clock and time for my lunch, and I found myself in that most pleasant of past times, deciding which mouth watering option to go for: Should it be the beef with watercress and the merest slivering of horseradish sauce, resting idly between two spring fresh pieces of bread? Or maybe the pork loin chunks smothered in seafood sauce and sweet corn then topped off with fresh iceberg lettuce and crushed croutons; pressed gently between two willing slices of lightly buttered and salted bread?

My mouth watered as I arrived at the fridge, but as I opened the door, my gastronomic dreams fell crestfallen to the floor when I took in the stark interior of my underworked fridge.

Two half used empty jars of jam, a well intentioned bottle of light mayonnaise, a bottle of pop (flat), some cheeses that were doing their best to stay in date and a box of eggs.

‘Egg sandwiches it was then’.

I turned forlornly to the depressed looking bread bin, it didn’t hold up much hope of having fresh ‘anything’s’ in its interior, but it did offer me two budget baps from the petrol station down the road. I nodded in resignation and grabbed the eggs, closing the door on the ghost town that is my fridge as I trudged off.

I put the eggs in the pan, filled the pan with water, turned it on to the ‘as-quick-as-you-like’ setting and went back into the front room to continue working on the gags while I waited for boiling water and time to do their bit.

Now there are two things that happen when I’m deep in thought or swimming headily amongst my own creative juices: first, my mind starts to wander, and as it wanders it usually drifts, followed swiftly by me as I drift off to sleep.

Not that I’d ever admit to being old or anything and I don’t really consider it sleeping, because thanks to political correctness, an afternoon sleep is now referred to as a ‘power nap’, and it was one such power nap that I’d drifted off into, with the smile of a contented baby on my face.

'I’ve done a few things in my time whilst attempting to cook, but I’ve never made an egg disappear before'

Twenty five minutes later I was awoken suddenly to a strange, but very audible POP sound. And seeing as I was still in that trance like state of the half asleep and therefore not fully awake, and yet to discover that I had a pen lodged up my left nostril, it was all a bit confusing.

Then the time space continuum thing did its bit and reality struck me like the slap in the face “The eggs!!”

I shot out of my seat, rushed headlong into the kitchen--- removing the pen before I tore my nostril off on the high back of my dining room chairs, and saw that the pan was dry and about to weld itself to the hob; and my eggs had disappeared.

‘My god’ I thought, ‘I’ve vaporised the eggs’.

I’ve done a few things in my time whilst attempting to cook, but I’ve never made an egg disappear before. And as I pondered on the triple thoughts of having to start lunch again, preferably this time with none vaporising eggs--- if the pan could be salvaged or whether I should leave it melt a bit more and sell it as a piece of modern art or finally, was there a new and burgeoning career for me as ‘Karlo, the amazing egg vaporiser’, when I was brought back to reality by the not very pleasant feeling of something ploppy, overcooked and half covered in shell, hitting me on the head.

I looked up, and there they were, my two eggs, splattered across the ceiling.

In the time it had taken me to snore like a chainsaw through a power nap, the water had evaporated and, having nothing else to do, had decided to start its own space race by launching my lunch onto the ceiling.

So whenever anyone asks me where I get my ideas from I say, come and stay with me for a week and I’ll show you.

Karen, are you still sure you want to live with me?