But I don't. I spectacularly don't.

I went to the grocery store last night to buy some staples for the kitchen. But I had only a vague idea of what I should get. Egg beaters, milk, bread, frozen veggies. A pan, a spatula, measuring cups. Pasta, pasta sauce, a pot to cook pasta in. A Weight Watchers magazine with recipes in it.

But even the grocery store part went horribly wrong. I bought so much stuff-- $131.00 worth of stuff, to be exact-- and before I realized what I had done, I had piled my heaps of groceries in the "15 items or fewer" express lane.

I apologized over and over to the people in line behind me; I tried to let them go first, but the guy standing right behind me was all blustery and insistent that I should just get it over with, and I panicked and acquiesced.

It took AN ETERNITY.

I was frantically bagging my own purchases, just flinging stuff into bags-- crushing a loaf of Wonder bread with a heavy frying pan, or flinging a gallon of milk on top of a bag of nectarines. I was in a panic, with the horrible feeling that everyone else standing in line WISHED I WERE DEAD.

All I could do was apologize over and over. Why hadn't somebody told me before I put seventy-two things on the little grocery belt that I was in the wrong lane? Why hadn't I looked at the damn sign?

And I knew that people were looking at my groceries even more judgmentally than they otherwise would have done. It was a very "girl on a diet" pile of groceries, including the aforementioned magazine, some Lean Cuisines, and the Skinny Cow ice cream. The people in line were probably entertaining themselves by searching for clues as to why I am overweight. "She clearly likes ice cream! That must be her downfall." "Yeah right. Like she's really going to eat asparagus."

I booked out of there so fast, you have no idea. I threw my twenty bags into the backseat and sped from the parking lot. I was afraid that if I lingered too long, an angry mob would come out and find me and beat me to death with bags of frozen peas.

Once I got home and lugged the groceries upstairs, I realized I had forgotten a lot of things. I had spinach leaves for the salad, but no veggies. I had a fork, but no knife. I had pasta, but no strainer. I had a can of soup, but no can opener. And I had this weird clear dish-thing that I was going to have to pretend was a plate. Because I had no plate.

Thank god I had wine.

My dinner was to be fillet of salmon with asparagus. Until I stood there, looking at the salmon and asparagus laying on the counter, realizing that I had no idea how to cook fillets, salmon, or asparagus. I just knew what they were supposed to taste like when they were done. Well, damn.

I remembered the words of Ian, who said that salmon is "easy" to cook, and it just needs four minutes on each side and some pepper on top, and it is done. It sounded easy, even encouraging, when he said it.

And I tried, I swear I tried. But that piece of salmon did not deserve what I ended up doing to it.

First of all, I had no idea how high the heat should be. The fillet looked pretty thick-- if I'd only had a knife, I might have cut it in half. But no; I just plopped it in the pan with lemon pepper and stared at it for a while. The heat-- was it too low? It looked like it was going to cook the outside, but not the inside.

I started rotating the salmon on its sides, thinking that I would get it cooked that way. But then I thought, well, the outside might look cooked, but it won't be cooked, and I will get salmonella and die or, at best, it will taste gross and raw. This is the illusion of cooking, not cooking itself.

And then I turned up the heat, thinking that might help. So it started sizzling! And I got confused. Was sizzling good or bad? Why hadn't anybody mentioned the sizzling!?!

Meanwhile the inside of the salmon didn't seem to be changing color at all, in spite of the sizzling. And there was a weird burning smell (which in hindsight I should have investigated further). What was the right move here?

Then, in a blind panic, I just started breaking up the salmon into chunks, smooshing the chunks flat with my spatula, and flinging more lemon pepper on top of everything. As the small chunks looked "done," I threw them all onto the clear plastic "plate" and hoped for the best.

I wish to god I had a camera, because the aftermath of this atrocity would have made quite a picture. It was basically scrambled eggs, only with salmon. It was a crime against seafood.

And then I decided to "cook" the asparagus. I threw the spears into the salmon pan and turned up the heat, and let them sizzle for like, thirty seconds.

This technique does not cook asparagus. Just so you know.

And it gets better! As I put the dishes into the sink, I realized where the burning smell had come from: the frying pan had a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of it. I was probably supposed to remove that before using it, not burn it to a crisp, huh? I tried to peel it off, but then I got burned paper all over my hands and it wouldn't come off. I tried to scrape it off, but it didn't work, and in fact I ruined my only fork.

So the asparagus was raw, the salmon was scrambled, the salad was nothing but a bunch of spinach leaves, the kitchen smelled like burned paper, and incidentally, I had no dinner table.

Tonight I'm having macaroni and cheese. Tonight, tomorrow, and possibly for the rest of my life.