My Bowl of Oatmeal

When I’m in the apartment, I don’t cook. I don’t cook if I can help it. So really, I don’t cook.

Well, if you count hard-boiling eggs and stirring instant pancit canton as cooking, then I’m a chef.

But I’m not.

It’s not that I can’t cook. I cook at home. I help my mom at it. But not the Stepford wifey material. My dishes are barely tolerable. Put more stress on the ‘barely.’

However, I had this terrible feeling when I ‘cooked’ my oatmeal this morning. I was stirring it to perfection that I had this purely illogical trance-like feeling of me clad in apron, my hair in an elegant bun, and I swagger about in heels. It happened that I was so swollen with my stunning success that I wanted to deliver the oatmeal to my boyfriend, with a big silver spoon and tell him, in my modest tone, “I made this for you, darling.” I wanted to make a scene as if I am in an advertisement where an audience would appear in the far-end of the kitchen, and they would stand up and applaud. My boyfriend would say, “Wow, this is delicious!” and hold my waist and kiss my cheek. I wanted my white bowl of banana-flavored oatmeal to suddenly be a feast. I could make a feast. I could do this! I am that girl...?

Yes. That was a terrible feeling. Yet…