Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

He really is that stupid.

In after Baud. Damn.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Celebrate the fucking wins.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

You are here: Home / An American Horror Story

An American Horror Story

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I am sorry to step on Betty, but I need to vent. Yesterday, I spent hours slowly making a red sauce, lovingly stuffing hot peppers with season pork and onions and cheeses, topped them slowly cooked them to perfection, and had some last night and saved the rest for today. I took them out, plated them, reheated them, topped them with a touch of parmesan and fresh pepper and carried them to my office desk so I could read this long piece that I had bookmarked earlier while munching away happily at my dinner.

All was going according to plan until THURSTON RACED INTO THE ROOM FROM OUTSIDE AND TRIPPED ME AND NOW LOOK AT MY FUCKING DINNER:

americanhorrorstory

Thurston puts the fail in foster fail. I swear I would give him to a good home if anyone would take him.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    Amaranthine RBG

    When you were falling you had a choice: Save yourself or save the stuffed peppers.

    You chose wrong.

  9. 9.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    That’s on you. You know you have a spaz dog, you need to behave accordingly.

    And the thought of what could have happened, if it were winter and out-of-doors, is not to be contemplated. You have a history, Cole.

  10. 10.

    Virgil

    Ah. I hate that! Reminds me of the time I was a sophomore in HS. Grabbed a plate of spaghetti from the hot lunch line, pivoted left too fast, and noodles and sauce slid off the plate – SPLAT on the floor! Of course, I received a rousing applause from my fellow students in the lunchroom. You begin salivating more when you look at your meal destroyed on the floor.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    So frustrating! I swear my guys are going to kill me some day what with all the times they seem to try to trip me.

    Last year I made a big pot of chili and then came into the kitchen the next morning and saw that I had never put it into the refrigerator. It crushed my soul to have to throw it all out. I imagine you may feel something like how I felt then, except I had no one to blame but myself.

    Glad you are not hurt, though. Bonus!

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    Does anyone else get annoyed by the email messages from Kos and others that say add “(please read)” to the subject. For some reason, that annoys the hell out of me.

  19. 19.

    Van Buren

    Don’t forget to read the piece. It will get you riled up, so perhaps best not read on a full stomach.

  22. 22.

    Countme

    Right about now, the 17 minute rule is still in effect, at least for the bits on top of the pile.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    @WaterGirl: Sure he did. One of two things happened here. Either 1) Cole fell flat on his face with no assistance or 2) Cole forgot he lives with three dogs and a bobcat.

  25. 25.

    CatHairEverywhere

    At least the Fiestaware is still in one piece… No fun to clean up peppers and pottery.

  26. 26.

    cat copeland

    NO NO No, Don’t blame Thurston! Typical humans.
    How LONG have you had Thurston??? Don’t have a clue of HIS behavior, yet!!
    YOU KNOW U WOULDN’T PART WITH “T”!!!!!!!!!!!!

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Iowa Old Lady: So I’m in my early twenties in college. (read: young and stupid)

    I’ve taken my cocker spaniel to the vet to try to figure out why she has diarrhea. No luck figuring it out. I am explaining this to my sister over the telephone as I am eating pickled hot peppers and am handing one to my cocker spaniel. A lightbulb goes off. Duh. I am regularly feeding hot peppers to my dog and wondering why she has diarrhea.

    Even if we ignore the fact that I caused the problem in the first place, don’t even get me started with my 20-year old self as to why I would even think about giving a hot pepper to a dog that was having digestive problems? (see previous comment about young and stupid)

  29. 29.

    Patricia Kayden

    John’s story reminds of when I put my spaghetti down for a second to open the sliding doors to let the dogs out and one of them pushed his whole snout into my plate. Had to laugh. Dogs are the best even when they’re acting up.

    John could make money by putting up doggy antic videos on Youtube. I’d follow him.

  32. 32.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    It’s no problem.
    Cole can just run down to Walmart and get some Great Value medium salsa, some Hormel precooked shredded pork, shredded processed cheese, and a few peppers.
    Throw ’em all together in the microwave and be good to go.

    Or not.
    Sorry about the meal as it looked like it would have been quite good.

  33. 33.

    raven

    When I tripped with a plate last year I severed my ulnar nerve and had to have surgery to repair it. . . right before I went fishing at the beach for a week!

  34. 34.

    karen marie

    @Countme: Doesn’t look like much of a pile – it’s spread pretty thin. Such a shame. My cat likes to sprawl out between the kitchen and the dining table. While I’ve come close to tripping over her while carrying a plate of food, I’ve gotten smart enough in my old age to watch carefully as I leave the kitchen. John still needs another 10 years or so apparently.

  35. 35.

    bluefish

    Do what we all do, man, when no one is looking! Scoop that delicious mess up — too late now, sure you already did. Back into a pot, add a little water, boil it up good good good to clean it up. Let it cool — give the whole sad yummy mess a Cuisinart or Nutri Bullet spin cycle and enjoy an interesting soup. In this sad, sad case, you get a 60 second rule to scoop it up off the floor. For future reference, mate.

    Hi, Thurston! And for sure good oh on the plate.

  37. 37.

    ruemara

    Sorry about your dinner. I’m thankful mine is coming along nicely. That being said, 1. do not pick up what’s on the floor and make soup. gross. 2. Just let it go. Pups gotta pup, cats gotta cat. 3. You know you can make a tasty dinner with what’s in the kitchen. Just go for it.

  40. 40.

    Sko Hayes

    @bluefish: John has dogs and a cat, so picking it up off the floor and boiling it won’t get the inevitable pet hairs out of it. No matter how much of a cleaning fanatic you are, there is always hair on the floor.
    (I’m sorry about dinner, John, but at least you didn’t hurt yourself or the dog!)

  41. 41.

    Sandia Blanca

    Wow, this is kind of the ultimate thread–or it would be if there had been some mustard in that sauce. Poor John! And I am definitely in favor of salvaging what you can, but to the soup suggestion above, just NOPE.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    Leaving aside the dog story (I blame the Ghost of Tunch), the article you linked to is worth reading. I watched as many of the Ethics in America programs as I could back then, and they were eye-opening. I remember the one mentioned in the article. It was eye-opening, and may explain some things about Chris Wallace. (I’m not at all sure that Mike Wallace was wrong, btw.)

    I wish mor people were doing essays like this.

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    Did you ever finish Thurston’s obedience class? Might help.

    The picture is beautiful, kind of like a 16th century still life.

  46. 46.

    Eric

    Pork you say? Then you weren’t making sauce, you were making gravy. This is karmic justice for that sin.

  48. 48.

    Aleta

    In 10 more years he will be a delightful dog.

    ( Actually he sounds delightful now. A loaf of bread, a dish of butter, a bag of blueberry cheese danish left on the car seat for an instant, all the cat food in the house , the one classy set of working blinds — par for the course, isn’t it?

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    LOL. I’m just glad American Horror Story did not involve Donald Trump.

    Could be a reuseable title.

  55. 55.

    jl

    Sorry about Cole’s Labor Day dinner. Looks like it was good.

    But I’ll need more evidence before I blame the poor dog. Cole has shown great talent at similar productions without anyone’s help.

    How long was it on the floor? Maybe you could pick it up and wash it off?

  56. 56.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @geg6: snicker! :-)

    Sorry, JC. But none of us are buying this “I’d get rid of Mr. T. if only I could!11” story.

    Seriously, JC: Our Sophie seems to have been born without the “I better move before I get stepped on” gene. She tripped me in the middle of the night when I was walking down a dark hallway – she was just lying there. My right knee still isn’t quite right after that – I hope you don’t have any residual damage from this. I didn’t even get an entertaining story from it!

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Re your comment on my picture of the Hobbit House on the morning thread. That house is NOT in the really nice part of town(like Beverly Hills, Bel Air, or even a nice part of The Valley), it’s in pretty solidly middle class(even lower middle class) Tujunga and really sticks out among the other houses.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    @jl:

    But I’ll need more evidence before I blame the poor dog. Cole has shown great talent at similar productions without anyone’s help.

    Ask Cole where Thurston was when he got trapped on his roof.

  63. 63.

    Corner Stone

    People saying pick it up off the floor. WTF? He has four indoor animals. And did you even bother looking at what he said he dropped?
    You couldn’t pick pringles off that floor and make them edible. Much less that hot mess he spread everywhere.

  64. 64.

    divF

    @Eric:

    Pork you say? Then you weren’t making sauce, you were making gravy.

    I call BS. Any southern Italian will tell you that pork neck bones add a unique savor to a Ragu.

  66. 66.

    redshirt

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m gonna make this phone last as long as possible, and when it dies, switch to the oldest school flip phone I can find.

    Which reminds me, time to take out the Digital computer from 1996 and fire it up. Viva La Windows 95!

  68. 68.

    raven

    Decent news:

    Long-time conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has died at the age of 92, according to The Eagle Forum, a pro-family conservative organization that she co-founded in 1972.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Iowa Old Lady: She loved all food! She would even eat lettuce if it had touched taco meat. Corn on the cob? She would nibble the corn off. Grapefruit? Sure. She loved pineapple, though if you gave her a big slice she would always leave the core. It apparently never occurred to me that she would want something that was bad for her!

  72. 72.

    Keith G

    I have two very sociable and very playfully curious cats who love being in the kitchen with me. I have altered the way I walk and change directions because of that.

    Suck it up, John, put your big boy pants on and get back in the game.

  76. 76.

    Feathers

    @Patricia Kayden: I once put a plate with a sandwich down. Came back and the sandwich was neatly splayed – two slices of bread, one with mayo and tomato, the other with cheese. Gone with the cat – my roast beef! Other animals have eaten stuff, but he acted like he was being polite and leaving what he didn’t want so I could finish it.

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @Keith G: Thanks for the reply! Sometimes I think you are being scold-y, good to know that when you do that maybe you’re just goofing on him.

  78. 78.

    Mike J

    I spent an hour yesterday making bordelaise sauce. I cheated and bought store made demi-glace. I put it under a lovely steak and ate it with no dog interruptions.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @Feathers: Your story reminded me of an experience when I was 20-something. I had just sat down to eat my leftovers from dinner the night before when the doorbell rang. I put the plate on the arm of the big overstuffed chair I was about to sit in.

    When I came back from answering the door, the 2 dogs were fighting over my lunch. Boy was I pissed! I tried to break up the fight and ended up getting bit on one of my breasts. Ouch! Oh, and it was fun to explain the bite mark and the big black and blue mark when I slept with my new boyfriend for the first time that week. Now it’s just a funny story, but man, that hurt!

  80. 80.

    Keith G

    @WaterGirl: Ya know, as far as the “scoldy” goes…..In the back and forth that goes on here, I never treat my contributions as if they have some moral or intellectual force. Most of the time it’s just informal kibbitzing. Throwing stuff against the wall and seeing if anything sticks. There are times when I will push into someone’s assumption if I feel it is off, but always with a sense of my own fallibility.

    If it comes off as scoldy, it might be because no one can hear the tone of my voice or see a raised eyebrow.

  82. 82.

    Humdog

    Anytime you carry something valuable in a house with critters, don’t walk! Scoot your feet as if you are ice skating. You clear the path of any slow moving creatures with your shins and no part of them get under your feet. Treading pets, if you will.

  83. 83.

    sinnedbackward

    @WaterGirl: Back at the dawn of time, my friends in Rhode Island lure coursed Borzois. Hillary (struth) was the youngest ever lure coursing champion Borzoi, having finished in a weekend.

    One day, Sheila, one of the owners, took a chocolate cake from the oven and rested it on a table in the kitchen. Hillary was sleeping in the corner.

    The phone rang. Sheila went to answer the phone, and returned about a minute later.

    The cake was gone. A trail of crumbs led to the still sleeping dog.

    Did I mention Hillary was a prodigy champion racer?

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    @sinnedbackward: I once hid a freshly baked birthday cake in a lower kitchen cabinet so we could surprise my friend with it. When I went to get it, we had half a cake left. But my dog was kind enough to have eaten from just one side of the cake, so we were able to cut the doggie edges off and have about half a cake!

    Chocolate cake, was that a problem?

  85. 85.

    bluefish

    @Sko Hayes: I assume, of course, being a housewife of a certain age that all of us here maintain clean kitchen floors under all circumstances. I run a tight pirate ship. And I was being naughty because the story made me sad for the cook. But, yeah, it happens–there have been those moments where the rubber meets the road. Which is totally why I was unable to donate to Walter when I badly wanted to. Because all roads seem to led to Walter. And this election season is driving me stark, raving mad. PS — I would eat that soup myself. It wouldn’t be offered to anyone else. And I wouldn’t eat a ton of it. Unless it didn’t kill me and it tasted good. PPS — You are quite right, of course. Cheers.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    If an appropriate open thread shows up later, I will probably repost this. Wrote these three Walter Sonnets tonight over a $4 glass of red wine.

    I. INFERNO

    Foreclosure. Auction. Bid successful. Keys.
    (Now to look at house bought, sight unseen):
    Approach front door. Slide key in lock. A turn.
    The door swings open. “This is mine, all mine,
    And everything within it — HOLY JEEZ!
    What IS that dog-like creature, mangy, lean?
    It’s nearly dead or dying, I discern.
    Its fur is patchy. Ribs stick out, and spine.”

    Weary, abandoned, left to starve and thirst
    By someone whom he trusted with his life,
    The tired old dog was ready for the worst
    (Or best — at least, the end of painful strife).
    The new man wept, and picturesquely cursed,
    And muttered threats about the afterlife.

    II. PURGATORIO

    A rug in a garage to sleep tonight,
    A bath, a meal, some water, pats, a scritch.
    A lovely car ride — “Going to the vet!”
    Clean bill of health — “I think I’ll kiss the nurse!”
    The new man says, his heart with hate alight:
    “I’ll rip the balls right off that summa bitch!”
    But then he thinks of all the friends he’s met
    Who’ll open checkbook, credit card, and purse

    (And hearts) to pay the vet bills, ship the dog
    To his Forever Home with Debit Fair;
    To lift the mists of loneliness, the fog
    Of hunger, fear, perplexity, and care.
    It’s harsh, this litany, this catalogue,
    And yet reveals commitment few would dare.

    III. PARADISO

    My name is Walter. I take mighty dumps.
    I like to ride in cars, but not to swim.
    I have new friends. The smells are different here.
    I think I’ve been here always, have I not?
    (In dreams, a man gives painful clouts and thumps,
    But, dreamlike, I can scarce remember him.)
    In love now wallow; gone are pain and fear.
    Remember only good times. Bad, forgot.

    Remember John, the man who rescued me;
    Remember Tim, who drove twelve hundred miles.
    As life games go, I’ve won the World’s Grand Prix,
    Aced all the tests, triumphed in all the trials.
    To all who brought me to life’s apogee,
    I greet with paws, and licks, and doggy smiles.

  89. 89.

    LiberalTarian

    Thurston obviously screwed up. You did not dump your meal on carpet, and so he only gets a 8.6.

  91. 91.

    JR in WV

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    With two dogs (65 lbs) and two cats (15 lbs) I always always use my red light flashlight when I get out of bed. There’s a rechargable white light flashlight too, for when I misplace the red-light headlamp.

    It isn’t bright enough to wake anyone else up, and keeps me from stepping on a pet, or tripping on something the dog dropped in the path. Always. Never walk in a house in pitch dark, anything could be lying there to trip over.

    When I got new shoulder joints, The doc said, and I quote “Don’t fall down!” while I was rehabbing. I assume it isn’t quite as dangerous now 18 months later…. but I still don’t wanna hit that hickory hardwood, it’s really hard now 20 years after we laid it down.

  92. 92.

    Hilfy

    @SiubhanDuinne: You are a real poet. That third sonnet almost got me too. That glass of wine is clearly beyond price!
    These sonnets should be moved to the Walter hashtag, Please to whoever knows how to do that.

  93. 93.

    JR in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That is so SO good… thanks for sharing that with all of us!

    Walter, such a good boy. So happy now, to be loved, that’s as important to labs as food. At least when they aren’t really hungry.

  94. 94.

    Lymie

    @WaterGirl: gosh I always leave the chili out over night to cool and then refrigerate it the next morning. What do you think is going to happen in a sterilized acidic environment that quickly?

  95. 95.

    JR in WV

    @Lymie:

    Me too. Or just heat it back up for lunch.

    Imagine a farm wife with a big hot pot of soup, say, 75 years ago – pre fridge, too far from town for ice deliveries. Throw out the soup in the morning? No way.

    My Grandma, born in the late 1800s, put her soups on the back porch, which was closed in with screen, to cool overnight, unless it was really hot out. Which was a week or two each summer. If you boil them every day, they’ll last a long time, if it isn’t a cream soup, or seafood. Those we just eat all of it.

  96. 96.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Hilfy:
    @JR in WV:

    Thank you for kind words. I have no idea how to apply the Walter hashtag, but I do plan to repost it on a non-dead thread when the right one comes along and will ask the FP to work their magic.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    @Lymie: @JR in WV: It’s all in what you’re taught about food safety growing up, I guess. My mom burned into my brain that you can’t leave something like that out for hours and hours without it being unsafe to eat.

    And now I have to come to terms with having thrown out my whole batch of chili, possibly for nothing? sniff-sniff.

  98. 98.

    NCSteve

    So, have you put a Geiger counter to that Fiestaware? We had a set of the real-deal depleted UO2 glazed stuff when I was a kid that we ate off of every day we weren’t using paper plates.

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