Limeade: Or How I've Lost All Observation Skills

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
-Will Rogers

I used to be able to observe.

In fact, I was rather proud of myself for my powers of observation. As an artist, noticing and critically examining the world around oneself is a vital component of creating beauty. I used to always think that I did it fairly well - details had a hard time escaping me. I wasn't a Shawn Spencer from Psych, but I did feel confident in my abilities to observe and notice things differently from the people around me.

At least until this summer.

Two weeks ago I found myself housesitting for the couple with whom I am interning. They were off galavanting on the beach and I reaped the benefits of having an entire house to myself (with their two dogs, who are way too much fun).  The week before I had stocked up on some limes that were on sale and I was excited about finding a use for them. On Monday I didn't have much to do, so I decided to make something out of the limes, go outside, sit under a tree, and read my book (Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy by Gregory A. Boyd. I would highly recommend it if you're looking for a long, deep, academic work that will keep you thinking late into the night). I pulled the limes out of the fridge, got out my trusty laptop that often doubles as a cookbook, and asked Google what I should make with my limes.

Limeade.

The moment I read the word I could taste the tangy sweet nectar on my tongue. What a perfect idea for a warm Arkansas day! I got to work finding the ingredients and cooking supplies in a strange house. Sugar? Check. Water? Easy. Limes? In my hand. This was going to be a quick task, who knew making limeade from scratch was almost easier than making it from a mix? I squeezed the limes, all the while wishing I had the foresight to bring along my juicer on my housesitting adventure (because one always should bring a juicer housesitting, right? What was I thinking?). Then I was ready to combine and cook. I needed a saucepan to make the lime syrup. It was time for a great search of the kitchen! I looked all over the place, on top of the refrigerator, in the spice cabinet, in the oven, in the dishwasher, everywhere I could think. No pans, whatsoever. Strange, what kind of people cook without pans? No matter, I am a resourceful person and remembered seeing a stainless steel bowl on my quest. I quickly relocated it, did a quick Google to make sure that it wouldn't explode when coming into contact with the stove (I had visions of turning around to zest a lime and suddenly dying as an exploding shard of stainless steel lodged itself in my brain. I would just lie there on the floor dead for a week, never getting to enjoy the limeade for which I sacrificed my entire being). Reassured that I wouldn't die, I moved on. Next, I needed measuring cups. If I were the people who lived in this house, where would I put the measuring cups? I looked there first. Random cooking utensils, an apple cutter, but no measuring cups. After about five minutes of looking, I gave up. Strange, but maybe they're really good cooks and just don't need to measure things. Well, I can be a good cook too! So I estimated the sugar content. Then I estimated the water content. Then I estimated the amount of lime zest to add. Quite proud of my measuring abilities, I cooked the syrup, strained it, added ice and water, and went outside to enjoy.

It was delicious. So delicious that I drank the entire batch that day. On Wednesday, I decided I wanted more. I repeated the above process, looking for the pans again and the measuring cups, still unsuccessful. (I had the sneaky suspicion that the people who lived in the house weren't the type of cooks that could manage without measuring cups and pans...they seem pretty vital in my mind. On one level I could understand not having measuring cups, but pans? No.) The limeade turned out almost as good, but not quite since I added too much zest this time and overcooked the syrup a bit, but at least I was managing in the panless house.

On Thursday, I decided I wanted to make breakfast. Pancakes sounded delicious. I located the ingredients and then realized that I had nothing to cook them in. The multi-purpose stainless steel bowl wouldn't help (unless I wanted itsy bitsy pancakes...but I was hungry and not in a delicate itsy bitsy cute mood). After turning over the kitchen yet again, looking positively everywhere (I even looked in the bedroom just in case they kept them in their closet or something...one never knows what other people do for organization in their houses. I did find pan lids on this search, which was even more infuriating as they just acted as a taunting reminder that there were pans hiding somewhere deep within the house, probably laughing at me that very moment), I exclaimed rather loudly, "Screw this! I'm going back to my house to cook!"

And that is what I did.

I made tacos.

Thursday night I was hungry. Once again I completed the all too familiar search for pans (this time I even looked for hidden compartments). The pans were just not there. I was living in a pan-free house where pan lids were kept simply as a reminder of what could be. How novel. As a last resort I decided to text the owners and see if they could shed some light on the situation that had been keeping me occupied for the past four days. Here is the exact transcript of the text message conversation that followed (notice how short it is):

Me: Where could I find saucepans/a skillet. I found lids but no pans!
Meghan: They are on the pot rack. Look up!

Oh.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you experienced such strong feelings of embarrassment, shame, stunned amazement, and pure stupidity that you couldn't move for a long period of time? If not, just stop and think about it for a little while.




...





After I recovered from the initial shock, I walked into the kitchen and raised my eyes upwards. Not towards the top of the refrigerator or the top of the cabinets, but just towards the middle of the room. This is what I saw:

I started giggling. And I didn't stop for a long time. Not refined manly chuckles, but real life giggles. I danced with the line that divides sanity and insanity. 

Eventually I composed myself, decided I was too tired to cook and settled for a frozen pizza. 

It took me another day to find the measuring cups.

-Matthias