The revenge of the spaghetti sauce

It was a brisk mid-winter evening. The wine was poured and the table was set. A closed matchbook lay on the hardwood table next to the solitary candle that would provide the ambiance for the first chapter of the romantic evening I had planned for my girlfriend.

"She will be here in five minutes," I remember thinking. "C'mon you goddamned sauce. It says right here on the bottle that you should be simmering by now. What is your problem?!"

Then I heard the car pull up. She was here and this was all supposed to be a surprise. I knew she wouldn't care if the sauce wasn't ready yet, but that wasn't the point. I wanted everything to be perfect, from the moment she read the love letter on the front door, to her favorite dinner waiting for her, to her favorite movie ("Pretty in Pink") all set to go in the VCR.

Then she opened the door and called out a "Hello?" in her mousy voice.

"Damn," I thought. "Just a minute," I yelled out.

The sauce still wasn't hot. In my panic, I rationalized that if I turned the heat up to high and left to meet her at the door, it would be ready to go by the time we got back to the kitchen. I can still visualize my hand turning that fateful control knob up to its limit.

"Hi, baby," I greeted her.

"You look sexy," she said. I had borrowed my friend's Armani dress shirt and wore my roommate's Gap slacks. I was dressed to kill.

"I'm starving; let's eat," she said.

She took off and arrived in the kitchen before I could check on the sauce.

"Ben!" she shrieked.

I ran into the kitchen, almost knocking her down. The sauce was angry. It was bubbling over the sides of the saucepan onto the thoroughly cleaned, white stove surface.

"Shit, shit, shit," was all I could say as I ran for the steaming pan. In a moment of utter clumsiness I jerked the pan off the stove, hurling the contents onto my shirt and pants. The obscenities resumed.

"Oh, shiiiiiiiiit!" My howl resonated off the walls of my small kitchen.

I threw the pan back on the stove and tore my shirt off to avoid the scalding sauce. Of course my aim was dead on and I knocked over the pot of perfectly manicured artichokes that would have been the first course. The floor flooded with medium-hot water.

My shirt was off and my pants were at my ankles. When I looked up, my girlfriend was standing off to the side with a sly grin on her face.

"Nice try, I'll give you points for effort. But next time, let's cook dinner together," she said.

What I had planned to be a romantic dinner and movie with my girlfriend turned out to be two Whopper meals and watching sitcoms on the laundromat television.