Defective

I was washing this 96 year old woman's hair this morning and she said to me as she was submerged in bubbles, "You know those commercials that say if you have an erection lasting more than 4 hours?"

I'm sure my hands paused in action for a moment but then I recovered and said..."Yes."

"Wouldn't he be bludgeoning things?"

I don't know what's scarier. That or the realization that this means he is effectively without a functioning brain for those 4 hours.

She likes to tell long stories and one of hers features a former caregiver who had 2 defective children. "Not Down Syndrome" she tells me, "But defective."

I've decided to keep my eyes peeled for defectives every since. Because I can't wait to use that word in a sentence!

Today was a good day for defectives because I had to go to the food bank. I'm out of money and food stamps until the 5th of next month so unless I want to eat peanut butter for the next 17 days I thought I should make the trip.

I am always astonished and disgusted at the kinds of things people decide to donate to a food bank. And I was not alone in this sentiment because the lady behind me kept muttering, "Please don't let it be bread! Please don't let it be bread!"

I knew of what she spoke! Last time I went I came home with 4 or 5 grocery bags stuffed with very hard loaves of French Bread. She and I started chatting about the dreaded overabundance of stale bread.

She said, "I told my boyfriend I come to the food bank for food and walk away with a bag of baseball bats!"

I told her if I got any milk she could have mine. I did get milk but I also got 4 loaves of bread. It appeared that she got about 8 loaves of bread. I also got out-of-date yogurt and a package of something in Spanish. It was a picture of some mussels and they were covered in chocolate sauce. The package which was one of those cardboard kind like juice boxes, said, "Mole!"

That is so defective. Who puts mole sauce on mussels for one thing. Who EATS mole sauce for another. I also got about 5 containers of yogurt but not normal yogurt: I got Jalepeno Bean yogurt and Parsnips Yogurt.

And this:

Is not this a prime example of defective thinking? To give a package of raw, uncleaned fish to the homeless who have no refrigerators, no cooking facilities and probably don't own a fillet knife?

But wait! It's Rainbow Trout.

And thus we have today's tutorial on how to do a defective job of cleaning and filleting a trout.


Number one: cut the head off and clean out the guts. See that red line in there? Scrub that out with the edge of your knife it will make a difference in the taste.

Number two:

Realize it is impossible to hold a camera in one hand and fillet a fish in the other especially when you don't own a fillet knife. Do you own a fillet knife? I do not own a fillet knife.

Cut to a plate of already cleaned, semi-quasi-defectively filleted trout:

Number Three: Prepare a large pan with very hot olive oil.

Number four: coat the fish in flour and cornmeal with lots of salt and herbs.

Number 5: Realize that life is bliss as long as you've got a skillet and a stove and a hunk of fresh fish.

Yum!

P.S: If you've had an erection lasting more than 4 hours, do not call me.