Murder She Wrote

5. "Shit! Fuck! Shit!"

They say the hardest part of your life happens during your middle aged years. Everything unfolds all at once until it's too overwhelming to handle. I'm not even close to my middle age and yet I'm stressing and growing out grey hairs more than my young self should. This part of my life is what I like to call balancing out adulthood and parenthood. Right now as I speak, I'm not doing so great.

"Sierra I have no idea what I'm doing." I said into the phone while hopelessly trying to cook two different things in each pot at once. I don't know why she decided it was a good idea to leave me in charge of the food for our anniversary party while she goes out to buy whatever else we need in preparation. We could've switched roles, buying stuff isn't brain science but of course she doesn't trust me with decorations at all. She's the type to be precise with almost every detail and arrangement. When we have huge guests like this expected to attend, she likes to show off and go all the way out with it.

Meanwhile I'm stuck here confused at which spice goes together and how much salt I'm even supposed to be using. Her clear instructions were to make spicy shrimp spaghetti and leave the rest of the cooking to her when she gets back home. This isn't even half of it, after this I'm supposed to be assembling the new baby crib that was delivered this morning and painting the walls of the baby room as well.

"Michael how fucking hard is it to make spaghetti, just boil it!" She yelled back through speaker phone. She says it like it's a simple thing to do.

"Well what about the shrimp, how do you do that?!"

Water started to splash uncontrollably out of one of the pots on the stove. It was going through the fire. "Fuck!" I cursed under my breath as I used the end of my shirt to grab the pot off of the stove. Not realizing how fucking hit it was, I accidentally dropped it onto the ground causing the entire pot of water to spill all over the place.

"For fucks sake Michael what did you do" she continued to yell through the phone. Her loud tone of voice was just adding more frustration in me. I know the pot was loud enough for her to hear through the phone so why would she ask such a rhetorical question.

"What the fuck do you think? I told you not to leave me in charge of the cooking. Who knows I might just burn the house down." I said with sarcasm and anger.

"Forget about the spaghetti just cook the shrimp please. If you don't know how look it up on YouTube like most idiots do." She then hung up the phone, leaving me alone and helpless once again. I sighed from exhaustion. I switched off the stove knowing it was useless to continue any further. I already fucked up on nearly everything. I spilled the water I was going to use to boil the spaghetti. The sauce I'm supposed to be adding into the spaghetti looks bland and most likely has a dangerous amount of salt in it. If I start on the shrimp I might just end up burning it or somehow making it a hard texture. I'm actually tempted to go out and just order the meal instead or call up Uber eats and have them deliver something.

"I'm sorry Sierra but I guess our guests aren't eating." I walked towards the living room and threw myself on the couch. I tried and I failed now I have no choice but to distract myself with something else. Something less stressful and more entertaining. I switched on the TV and began to browse through the channels. There wasn't anything good on as far as I seen, just news and re-runs of the same show. So I then decided to switch to Netflix. I had a couple shows I had to catch up on which I barely have any time on my schedule to do so. Work and catering to household needs has eaten up all of my time where I don't even find myself relaxing and sitting back to enjoy some alone time. Come to think of it I don't even remember the last time I've actually watched TV alone without any interruptions. It felt kind of nice. Yeah sure I'm supposed to using this time to finish off cooking but I've had too much on my hands today I deserve a little relaxation. Besides Sierra won't be back until an hour and a half from now.