Somehow, I got corralled into cooking hamburger (taco meat) for 50 people, and I’m still not entirely sure how it happened. One minute they were passing around a signup sheet, and I happened to get it last, and the next minute, I’d been cornered. There was nothing LEFT but meat, so I said, “Okay, sure, I’ll bring some meat.” Somehow, that turned into me cooking ALL the meat and people giving me money.

As you can tell, I haven’t really mastered the art of being a government worker. If I’d done it properly, I would have handed two dollars to someone and they would have MAGICALLY appeared the day of the Taco Potluck with a great big vat of cooked taco meat. But no, I still have a lot to learn, and thus, I ended up doing the cooking.

Now, I’m not really a fan of hamburger, and the whole cooking process makes me a little nauseated, so this has been a chore. Besides the fact that I had to cook a GAZILLION pounds, and it has taken me about two hours. You can’t cook taco meat halfway, you know. There’s that whole e-coli thing. And then there’s the seasoning. I KNOW how to season two pounds of meat. How does one season a GAZILLION pounds? And how does one know when it is properly seasoned?

God forbid I might have to taste it, because after two hours of cooking it, all I want to do is throw it out the freaking window! Or feed it to the dog. He would, of course, eat it all, and then roll over and DIE, because he is not the smartest dog in the world (he thinks the doorbell is for him EVERY time it rings. Even though it never, never is.). A gazillion pounds is a lot of meat for a little shih tzu.

I have entertained calling in sick tomorrow, because that is a very “government-like” thing to do, and it would be pretty freaking ass funny, except I would never be able to show my face at work again. These people take their potlucks and treat days seriously.

I would be stoned. I mean literally stoned, like the old days “stoned to death” with rocks. Not stoned like the lady who sits across from me worshiping Jim Morrison, and putting voodoo spells on everyone who pisses her off (all of us, on different days). That, my friends, is a whole DIFFERENT kind of stoned.

While I was cooking this hamburger, and plotting my immediate conversion to vegetarianism–because let me tell you, hamburger meat is disgusting–I started thinking about how easy it would be to poison people. I mean, think about it. How many picnics, potlucks, parties, banquets, soirees, etc., are held EVERY single day? BY very trusting people! I mean, when was the last time you got ready for the Superbowl, thinking, “You know, I better take my own food, because I believe it’s entirely possible Helen is going to try to kill me off so she can marry my husband, and become the mistress of my household.”

Let’s face it, we don’t think about it.

I think we got a wakeup call not too long ago when the infamous Dominos video was posted on Youtube.

I promise, I have not done anything disgusting to this taco meat.

But let’s face it. It would be pretty easy to do, if I wanted to do so.

Sometimes we get too meticulous in our plotting and thinking, when it would really be very, very easy to just poison the taco meat for the work potluck.

Hmm. I think I just scared myself…. I wonder if Voodoo Lady is bringing anything…..

© 2009, Natalie R. Collins. All rights reserved.