Journal entry N°15- Leo's journal:
Kitchen hates me.
Usually when I write something in my journal is meaningful, full of wisdom and all that jazz but this entry is different.
This is more like a rant, a funny story and some kind of weird conclusion at the end so bear with me.
Ready? Here we go.
…
I don't understand why but every time I try to fry, bake, boil or help Mikey with something- anything! – disaster is just around the corner.
It's like the kitchen knows I'm around and plots against me!
And don't think I haven't tried- oh, I've tried a lot!
You can ask my brother Mikey about my failed cooking lessons; he tried to teach me to the point he lost his patience and chased me around the lair with a butcher knife after a little incident with the oven… and the juicer… and...
Ehem.
The point is now I'm not allowed to get near the kitchen without supervision; only to make some tea or instant soup which, miraculously, has always turned out right.
Other than that? Two words: TOTAL. DISASTER.
You have no idea how frustrating it is to suck at something so essential like cooking! Heck, the fact that Mikey could give Gordon Ramsay a run for his money makes me want to cut off my head.
I'm guessing Sensei was right when he said Michelangelo had hidden talents and natural abilities and made him the family's chef… and I couldn't help but hate myself a little bit every day for not being able to accomplish such "simple" task.
I thought my other two brothers would have the same trouble but no, they succeeded as well. And when we met Casey, guess what! He knew how to cook too!
Everyone I know can cook and I can't?!
Well… now that I think about it… Who can't cook either and it seems that she's also suffered the kitchen's assaults more than once.
Like one day, she attempted to make some soup for Don because he was ill and Mikey was nowhere to be seen.
I think it was comic book day? Can't remember.
Anyway, I was in my room, organizing stuff… and I heard cursing from the kitchen. I went downstairs, ran to the kitchen and I saw the most epic thing in the history of epic things:
Raph was laughing his shell off, there was soup all over the floor and Who was covered in noodles, a yellow dust- I'm gonna say it was some kind of condiment- and chicken bits… from head to toe.
I don't know how but she had managed to make the soup explode before she put it on the stove.
Now, the evil little guy in me wanted to join Raph, roll all over the floor, take pictures, record everything and play it on movie night BUT my conscience- you know, the other little guy, the good one- said:
"Leonardo, look closely and tell me what you see.
Don't rush! Don't… rush… take your time.
DON'T LAUGH!… Just. Look. Closely"
I saw her again and BAM! There it was!
The look on her face, that look of disappointment and bottled anger with herself… I had seen it before many times. Still do.
Where, you ask?
In the mirror. Because that's my face every time I fail at something ESPECIALLY if it's cooking.
While I had this little chat with my conscience, Raph kept teasing her and laughing like there was no tomorrow.
In the end, she cleaned up, I helped her and Raph went to tell Donnie the news and warned him that her cooking would only make him even sicker.
…
A few days passed; we were done with morning training and everyone went to do their own thing. I haven't talked to Who about the kitchen incident so I was a bit curious.
I followed her to the living room and I said:
"Hey, uh… I probably shouldn't be asking this but remember the soup accident few days ago? What exactly happened? Was it one of Mikey's pranks or something?"
She said:
"No way, I know better than to fall for one of his pranks. Dude can never catch me. At least most of the time he can't"
Then I asked:
"Alright, if it wasn't a prank then what was it?"
She chuckled and said:
"I don't know how to cook, man. I thought I could since I wanted to make Donnie feel better and, you know, good actions and positive thoughts can make anything possible but… I failed"
She didn't know how to cook?
What?
WHAT!
"Then what the heck where you doing in the kitchen? You could've hurt yourself! What if the soup was boiling when you dropped it or made it explode or whatever!"
Who was still chuckling when she came close to me and gave me a pat on the shell.
"Relax, Leo! I just wanted to see if my luck had changed after those lessons I took years ago but ends up the kitchen hates me. Simple as that"
Could that kitchen be cursed or something so it could detect who sucked at cooking and who didn't and made their lives impossible?
Ok that was ridiculous.
Anyway, we kept talking and she told me to chill, that we would always have family to feed us and that I shouldn't feel bad about it!
Everyone has their weak spots and I guess cooking is mine. And Who's.
It didn't make me feel a hundred percent better- curse my stubbornness- but at least I learned to not be so hard on myself; I mean I could still make instant soup and tea.
That's something.
She agreed and laughed, so did I. And then she said:
"Imagine if we were to live alone, like those just married young couples, none of us knows a thing about cooking so we would have to live of tea and soup. Crazy huh?"
She hadn't even stopped talking and I was already hearing the Twilight Zone theme song in my head and I'm gonna take a wild guess and say she was hearing it too because all that previous laughter?
Zero. Gone. No more.
Wow, talk about awkward.
I guess there's no real message here; I can only say if you're bad at something and you already tried it a bazillion times and saw no progress?
Don't freak out, don't get angry and don't let frustration kill your organs. You can either keep trying or you can call it quits and try something else!
Who knows, maybe you'll succeed.
As for me? I'll just have to accept that kitchen hates me.
Simple as that.
End of Journal entry N°15
…
…
Laid back Leo is a rare specimen … ._. I must hunt him and study him.
Yeah.