This is the prime tenet of the bachelor's guide. Make due with what you've got, and know how to fix your mistakes. If a dish it too runny, add flour. If it is too dry add water....
In my first year of college, I lived in the dorms. Due to noise and cramped living conditions, I was ready for a changed. I took the place of Chuck, who graduated and went off to the real world, and it was made quite plain that I was Chuck's replacement. The door to my room was decorated with red oval stickers from the meat department of a grocery store that read "Chuck Quality". For a couple of weeks that was my code name, until I said, "I'm not Chuck!" I guess my tone was such that I sounded more upset than I was, but at least they stopped.
Instead of having to do the cooking an arrangement was made with Curtis's girlfriend, now wife, Carolyn to cook supper for us and she would eat free. She is a good cook and even her mistakes were good. The bachelor's guide was born of the efforts of the bachelors in the previous year to get by and eat edible meals.
Before my time in the apartment, each apartment mate had their turn as cook. Chuck's specialty was macaroni and cheese with hot dogs projecting vertically above the dish. This was some form of casserole that had burnt hot dogs protruding from the macaroni, and often cold macaroni on the bottom.
Remember to take the radio out of the oven before you turn it on. Before I joined the apartment, they invited a friend over to cook for them. To be funny they put an 8-Track Radio in the oven. The guest cook turned on the oven without looking, so when there was a funny smell from the kitchen they ran in and pulled out the oven rack and ran outside with the oozing plastic between the bars on the oven rack. Once it cooled, they tried it out and it still worked. It kept working until we all graduated. I do not know whatever happened to it, but it may still be working to this day.
Another fun trick was to put colored lights in place of a regular light bulb in the refrigerator. A red light made the milk look pink. Another addition to this trick was to use an outlet adaptor in the light socket so they could plug in a tape recorder. When the door was opened either a taped message or the radio would play.
Ham sandwich. One time we had one of those processed hams that are oblong and you just slice it.... One day as I came home from class Louis was in the kitchen. He had out bread, etc. like he was making a sandwich. We were visiting and then the toaster popped and stuck in it was a fat slice of ham that Louis wanted to warm up. I said, "Lou, what are you doing?" He just laughed and said, "It worked didn't it?" As he pried out the fat ham slice with a fork, since it was really too big for the slot.
That's Relative. We had a poster of Albert Einstein in the dining room, and whenever we or someone we were talking to said, "That's Relative", we would turn towards that poster. It was really funny if we were all together and turned away from a speaker to face the direction of our apartment.
Sine over cosine. I was part of a couple of Bible Studies in college, and when ever we got off topic, instead of saying we were on a tangent, we said sine over cosine. Sine/cosine is equivalent to tangent.
Rum Cake.
Pumpkin Pie.
Snappy Koolaid.
Black Dome Cheese Sandwiches.
Frozen Dairy Desert.
The Gentry Convention.
The Electric Fence.
The Forum Knights.
Barbecueing at 20 degrees.
Tangy.
Cherries Jubliee
Drinking Soap
Home made ice cream.
After a short time in the apartment, I realized there were incidents in high school that qualified.
BBQ Beef. In high school we had one lunch menu item called BBQ Beef sandwiches. The beef was shredded, so it was stringy. One day sitting with my usual crowd, I took a piece and threw it on the drop ceiling about 10 feet above. We watched that piece of meat every day thinking it would fall. It never did. A few years later, my grandfather wanted me and my bothers to go with him to the all high school reunion. It is an annual event and was held in the cafeteria. Out of curiosity, my brother and I went over and looked up and that piece of petrified BBQ Beef was still there! WE busted out laughing and got a lot of stares from the senior citizens.I think the FDA should investigate the health implications of such "food". I think the building industry needs to check into this as an industrial glue. Almost as good as dried cereal stuck to a bowl. Is there any way to get it off after it dries? (That's another tenet of true bachelors, rinse your dishes, so even if you do not have time to wash them they at least look clean.)
Such incidents continued even after college.
Snoring. In my final year of seminary I shared an apartment with two first-year students. We had our cots all in the same room. One time our roommate Neil was snoring so loudly that Bob and I woke up and were just shaking out heads at each other, when suddenly Neil said, "Bob, quit snoring!" He was snoring so loudly he woke himself up and would not believe that he did that. It did not help that we were laughing so hard at this thing.
More to follow....
I can't read.
The Wife.
David...Daddy.
Created on ... August 16, 2003
© 2003 Lawrence M. Hamilton, Jr. All Rights Reserved