I’ve Realized These Are My People

Last summer, in a fit of rage, I destroyed a tray of chicken wings.

My husband’s bandmate was up visiting for the weekend and I was ready (READY) to wow him with my homemade chicken wings. They're epic. Seriously. I’ve perfected the technique of oven cooking such that they crisp up perfectly. My wing sauce is the ideal combination of Frank’s Red Hot and Kate’s salted butter. And nothing holds a candle to my homemade Ranch or Blue Cheese. Just nothing. Ok? Ok.

Except on that night, I decided to grill the wings, not spike the oven to 450 degrees inside the house in the July heat. In between heating up the grill and getting the wings on the grill, I’d managed to turn up — not down — the flames. A while later I happened to look out the doors to our deck and saw smoke pumping from the back of the grill. I ran outside and opened the lid to find the skins of the wings blackened, the meat still raw inside.

And this is the exact moment where I went from being a 37 year old woman to a six year old child. Instead of carefully removing the wings from the grill, I swung my tongs across them, further igniting the surface (because now all the flammable chicken fat was dancing together) and setting an even greater fire. My husband would later inform me that this was the exact moment I could have actually salvaged the wings, had I simply removed them and not had a temper tantrum. Whelp!

But it gets worse.

I then relegated myself to the bedroom and fell to the floor on the side of our bed, secretly/not so secretly hoping James would find me to tell me everything would be ok. He did find me. He did say everything was going to be ok and it wasn’t a big deal. But Iiiiiiii stretched that. I took his sweet laughs and sunk deeper into my childish rage, at which point he said (rightfully so), “Ok, I can’t do this anymore,” and promptly left the bedroom. I simply wanted him to tell me how BAD I was for ruining the wings and how BIG of a deal it was. Except it wasn’t.

But what was then even harder was pealing myself off the floor and facing our house guest, who now not only had witnessed me ruin our dinner (really, not a big deal), but then have an utter meltdown about it.

Somehow, 20 minutes later we were eating what remained of the wings James had salvaged and a handful of burgers we’d thrown on last minute. I didn’t get the glory of my chicken wing skill, but clearly the desire had landed me here.

I’ve realized recently, I need chicken wing people in my life. No, not buffalo sauce obsessed kin, but folks who occasionally lose their marbles over really stupid sh*t. Who can go from 37 to seven in a matter of seconds. Whose emotions, sometimes, get the best of them. People who take it too far and act like a baby in front of their husband or family or friends and appear really, really human.

I’m not justifying the above. I’m not planning on a repeat this summer. But I can’t make any promises. My mom once told me she got so angry at a batch of brownies that wasn’t working out that she flung the batter on the ceiling. That batter stayed until we moved out of the house.

Maybe your version of falling apart or having shit go haywire doesn't involve food. Maybe it's the slamming of doors or throwing things or collapsing into a pile of tears (that last one is definitely me.) And, perhaps, like me, you're doing all the things to work on processing those emotions and handling them in a different way, but sometimes — sometimes — you just need to fall apart.

And then, a little while later, you lick your wounds and go and eat the really good burgers your husband just grilled up. Happy summer.