I’ll always remember when I knew for sure I was a lousy cook. Also nearsighted.

The suburban ranch house where I grew up had a utility room which contained the washer, dryer, power tools, building supplies and also the food pantry. I was baking a birthday cake for my father at about age 12. I went in to get the confectioner’s sugar for the frosting, brought the yellow bag back to the kitchen, measured it out, and mixed it up. The first odd thing I noticed was that the batter got very heavy right away. But I was in a hurry, so I quickly stirred it up, added some bright blue food coloring, and frosted the cake, putting it in the fridge. The second thing I noticed was that there was a LOT of icing left over...again, because dinner was starting, I just stashed the bowl, with the spatula still in it, in the fridge.

After dinner, I went in to get out the cake and was disconcerted to find that I could hardly lift it. Hauling it over to the kitchen counter, I subsequently discovered that the birthday candles wouldn’t go in it -- nor, I found out, would a knife. I called everybody in there to look at it. My dad, trying to keep a straight face, asked to see the confectioner’s sugar bag. It was, of course, not confectioner’s sugar at all but Sakrete (powdered cement). After we stopping laughing (which took about a half hour), my dad took the bowl of excess icing, added a little water, carried it outside and started plugging cracks in the sidewalk. For years, until the house was finally torn down (to build a hideous McMansion), I could see those bright blue specks every time I walked by. And the cake? Well, let’s just say that we had a bright blue doorstop for a long time after.

Lord knows I wanted to learn to cook. But frankly, when you live alone, you aren’t very motivated -- Lean Cuisine is your best friend. Every time I actually tried to make something, I’d make four times too much, end up eating more of it than I should, and throw out the leftover science experiment in the back of the fridge a month later. Or I’d "cook" dinner for friends, they’d gingerly sample it, smile brightly and order takeout.

My mom was a reasonably good cook, except when it came to recipes that called for liquor -- most of it would end up in her stomach while she was cooking, seldom making it into whatever dish she was making. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Beef Burgundy without the burgundy. Poor mom...being a housewife didn’t suit her, and having to put up with me wasn’t any picnic, because...

I was the devil’s spawn as a kid. You know the evil child in every neighborhood who bites other kids? Me. The congenital liar. Me. The tattletale. Me. The diabolical wacko who feeds her brother a bottle of baby aspirin and her sister a bottle of Tobasco sauce. Moi. The “wouldn’t it be fun to make myself pass out just as the babysitter arrives?” child. Me again. Oh, yes. I could make myself pass out, and did it regularly to great effect. Until one day, I marched out into the backyard where my mom was hanging wet laundry on the clothesline. I was throwing my usual tantrum about something or other, and not getting the attention to which I was accustomed (my mom was pretty jaded by then), I passed out...right into a big patch of poison ivy. Funny...I never could quite do it after that.

I think my parents were almost relieved when I went into the theatre...maybe they thought it would serve as an outlet for my insanity and keep me out of trouble!

(Ironically, my siblings and I get along great as adults. Of course, it might be self preservation on their part.g)

But why the family kept me I’ll never know -- if I’d been them, I think I’d have sold me into slavery in some third world country.