Over the years I have cooked some interesting things. Never really a recipe just shoot from the hip.... and generally while inebriated. For the longest time I thought the worst meal was a Cheeseburger MAC. I started off with ground meat, Instant MAC... Except I did not have any milk in the house at the time. As it was roughly midnight and I was half into a bottle of Rum and unable to walk, let alone drive to get actual milk. So what would help to make Milk when you don't have milk.... Powdered Coffee Creamer was my answer. Down side however is that I didn't have normal coffee creamer, so Caramel Coffee Creamer was used. This resulted in a very sweet mix of macaroni, Cheese and browned meat. By this point the Rum was gone and I was making decisions based off of fuzzy logic and numb taste buds. To lessen the sweetness I used various condiments that I would put on a cheeseburger in general. So when I was done, the levels of mustard, ketchup, relish, made the mix soupy, but it tasted ok at the time.
The next day at work, I reheated this to the looks of my horrified co-workers as I described what the meal was at it smelled horrible before it was warm and reeked of road kill after the fact. After reassuring everyone that it was fine, I had one mouth full that was the sweetest // saltiest // foulest thing I had yet to eat. To which I was taken pity on by my friends and they bought me lunch with the cavate that they retell this embarrassing story at any time that any of them deem fitting.
Fast forward to June 7th 2021. It was the end of the first full school year for Covid-19. My oldest was in Kindergarten, and my youngest was 2. I had been transferred in the company that I was with to a plan that I was not happy to be with - for a client that I now loathed. For myself it was a very long school year that really only helped by drinking heavily - Alone as I never saw anyone outside my family during that time. Isolation, Stress, Burned out, and not mentally healthy by any means.... My family was leaving for the week as it was the last day of school - to go to my oldest’s grandparents house. The boys were to spend the weekend outside the home, and I was working without being able to take time off. I hugged them and waved good bye as they drove off to southern states, leaving me unsupervised for the rest of the week.
It was a warm June with temps in the upper 90's and muggy as fuck. I had a hankering for a good steak and decided I would cook the meal at night when it was cooler. I had finished my work shift and went to the store to buy supplies for my one person celebration of the end of the school year. This would soon be the very worst meal that I have ever cooked.
At some point during the evening I started early with the libations, some video games, and whatever for movies. Dark and stormy drinks of a bottle of 90 proof rum and Ginger beer, Snake Bites of a bottle of Yukon Jack (100 proof Whiskey) and lime juice, and a bottle of Wine as I ran out of the other stuff. I found myself cooking around midnight thinking it was cooler then. The Steak had been cooked and was resting and the toppings were being cooked in the wok on the stove top. I had work in the morning and needed to set myself up to sleep at some point and the alcohol wasn't working regardless that I drank three bottles. So I popped a 50mg edible, pushed the food off the heat and sat on the couch to wait to sleep and start work in a few hours.
Looking back on all this, it's amazing that I had gotten to the point that I could drink my self sober, that I was able to consume that much, and that even in mixing things hadn't gotten worse previously. For the next parts of this story I do not remember what happened. I just have pieced together what I knew from what others told me. This game of the "Hangover" plot line, was relatively familiar over the past year in retracing my steps to see what I had actually done, or who I talked to.
At some point I fell asleep and what I thought was taking the food off of the burner was not the case, and the onions/peppers/garlic that I was sautéing had dried up, caught fire and did a slow burn on my apartment. The smoke from the stove and fire triggered the fire alarms that were linked to the entire building. This was roughly around 1-2am. My upstairs neighbor had attempted to get me out of the apartment but we had a child safety lock on the door that prevented her in opening it. I was awake at this point, while blacked out, and in the thick of the smoke filled kitchen and saying that everything was ok and I could save the food. Somewhere after this my lungs filled with smoke and I passed out. Face down on the floor with a chunk of smoldering kitchen resting on my back, the first responders that arrived had busted down our front door to remove me from the fire.
At the time that I was removed, I hadn't been breathing. I guess I had a pulse or maybe I didn't, but if you are looking for rock bottom as a starting point, being considered dead is good enough place to start as any. I was revived on scene and placed into the back of the ambulance and taken to the hospital, with the expectation from the professionals on site that I wasn't going to make it. My neighbor above, and my neighbor/land lady/friend below all made it out. Myself and our cat were the only two to be affected in the fire. While I have been untangling my mind since the incident I have yet to be able to grieve for my friend. I may some day just not sure when I get to that section of the tangled web of grey matter.
Around the time I was in the triage department, my memory kicked in and I became aware of what was going on. I can only guess that I got pumped with various drugs to kick start my brain. I was told later on that I was very open with how much I took and at what frequency that all was, a bit of a chatty Kathy between hocking up lung biscuits. My first memory after sitting on the couch was to be talking to mother while coughing up grey chunks that looked like my brain and asking if the food was cooked. That lasted for a bit and then the rest was very in and out of what was real or not.
From my side of the looking glass, I was handcuffed to a bed while a grumpy nurse refused to give me water. For the life of me I could not remember her name correctly, and whenever I would get her name she would only give me a drop of water soaked que tip to drink. There were 3 rooms that I was in where I interacted with the occupants. I say occupants as they changed while I was there. A room with aliens that were serving me drinks and talking to me about the logistics work that I did. A room of computers that I was playing games in and talking to people, about the remote work tasks, and another that felt like a scene from Dante's Inferno with bodies scattered over the floor, while I flew over them as if I was in a helicopter. At a certain point I became more aware of where I was and understood that I was in a hospital being prepped for a conference demonstration regarding the new procedures they had done on me and that is why they hand cuffed me to the bed so I wouldn't run away.
On the sober side of the lens, the story was much less trippy. I was incubated twice, the first time I ripped the tubes out and it took 4 grown adults to strap me down so they could attach the tubes that needed to be so they could vacuum out the amount of ash and soot that had settled into my lungs. I had a normal catheter inserted twice and then attached as a Texan Catheter and that was ripped off once before staying on. Along with adding the medicine to pump out the poison that was killing me. Due to the lack of oxygen to my brain for an unknown amount of time there was a concern for brain damage. When I came in I apparently did not know I had kids, or that I was married, who or where I was. I was belligerent and foul mouthed to the staff till I regained my sanity and the night/day mares cleared.10 days in the hospital - 7 in intensive care that I don't really remember and 3 in the recovery ward. I'm lucky to be alive, and have spent a fair amount of time learning to be in the present. I am still held hostage by my past and have a fear of the future, but I'm learning to sit in my own shit and take responsibility and accountability for how I got here. And here is still sober, choosing life each day as both the villain, victim, and hero of my own story. When I was in the recovery ward the Fire Chief came in to ask what it was that I was cooking when I set the fire off. I said I tried Cajun Kitchen.... and that it was the worst meal that I have ever cooked
