In an adorable little story emerging from San Diego, CA, 25-year-old Ryan Lee just told her mom that she was “cooking up a little something” when what she meant was “heating up a little something.”
How adorable! Those are not the same thing, babe!
“Yeah, I’m just making a little dinner for myself, nothing crazy,” Ryan told her mom over the phone while perusing through her eclectic collection of frozen food from Trader Joes. “What am I making? Hmmm, maybe a little gnocchi or some curry with some rice and chopped vegetables to top it off, but I might just play it by ear!”
It’s impossible for Ryan to play anything “by ear” considering that every dish she just described comes in a microwavable package.
“I mean, you know how I am – always cooking up something delicious and nutritious!” she continued, as if she had chopped an onion in the last six months. “Making a balanced meal at the end of a hard day is what keeps me going. I love to get in the kitchen and mess around, just see what comes from my fingertips, you know?”
Ryan’s kitchen specialties include heating things up in the microwave, heating things up in a saucepan, and — if she’s feeling fancy – heating things up in the oven. She’s even stopped heating things up in the rice cooker, as she managed to fuck that up somehow, and has taken to only using microwavable rice.
“I’m certainly concerned for Ryan’s ability to function as an adult,” said Ryan’s roommate, Tina McPhee. “Sure, she’s getting all of her food groups in now, but that’s only because Trader Joes started releasing that veggie mix that you can heat up in 120 seconds. I don’t know how this is going to work the second she tried to cook for someone else and they realize all she’s doing is heating stuff up.”
Meanwhile, Ryan was defensive of her own “cooking” ability.
“Heating stuff up takes a nimble hand and a lot of practice,” she countered. “Sometimes you heat something up too little, and it’s cold. But if you heat it up too much, it gets too hot. It’s very difficult to find the perfect sweet spot.”
Tine maintains that she’s pretty sure the perfect sweet spot is written on the packaging.
As of press time, Ryan was in the middle of cooking up the perfect midnight snack: a bowl of cereal.
