Independent Living; Installment Two

Another major accomplishment today:

I cooked pasta in my microwave. I took my little pasta cooker and filled it with water, running my two-cup pyrex measurer back and forth from the drinking fountain three times. It took about 20 minutes for my little, old microwave to get the water up to boil. Then I took some pasta and poured it into the water, and it took another 20 minutes for it to cook. Occasionally I would pop open the door, wait for the blistering steam to disperse, snatch the cooker onto my desk and stir it with a fork. When it was at al dente perfection, I stuck the little pasta strainer in the laundry room sink, and I gingerly picked up my little plastic vat of pasta and drained it.

After it had cooled some, I put the noodles into my bright red soup mug with the handle. I scooped butter out of the little packet I had taken from the cafeteria at breakfast. I added some salt from the shaker I had stolen out of the Cafe an hour previously. Hey, if I'm paying thousands a year for out-of-state tuition, I can steal a salt shaker if I want. And I ate it, and it was wonderful.

However, this is not the clincher. The best part was when I put my dirty dishes into the little pasta vat and almost clapped my hands in joy when I realized I could wash my dishes using the pasta vat as a sink.

Independent living is when you're standing over the massive sink in the laundry room, and your microwavable pasta vat is full of soapy water and dirty dishes, and you're scrubbing away with your disposable dish rag, and you're happy. Because it's the easiest way to clean your dishes that you've used in two weeks.

So, I'm going to eat a brownie with a big glass of milk, and watch Friends (on the TV that I myself hooked up to cable) and then call my family.

Who says you have to be drunk to have fun?