Now, before I disclose my nutty story, I should make clear that I am a very good baker. During my child rearing days I studied baking from a Danish pastry chef. More recently I interned for two years as a pastry chef after retiring from the hospital. My grown middle daughter and I even won an NPR pie contest.

Now onto the nuttiness. Sometime in the dark early hours of a new day, when I was alone in the kitchen with just the sound of an occasional bird and Led Zeppelin on CD, I was making my son a chocolate cake for his party of just a few hours hence. There was no time for sleep. When the twenty nursery school children and their mothers arrived, the house was clean and decorated, the cake ready and I put on my calm and smiling Martha Stewart act.

The party went well. There did not seem to be the expected amount of mayhem caused by twenty small male wild children. My husband noted the relaxing atmosphere of the party, and when returning to collect their children, so did some of the parents who were surprised to find their offspring had not burned the house down.

Later that evening, I was cleaning the kitchen when I came to the part of the counter by the sink that supported the remainder of the ingredients used to bake the cake. There was the large flour canister, baking chocolate wrappers, bowl with raw egg coating, sugar, empty buttermilk container, dirty mixing bowls, dirty spatulas, cake decorating supplies and something unexpected. I screamed loud enough to bring my husband running. There, in the middle of the previous night’s cooking remnants, in place of the vanilla, was a large part empty bottle of cough medicine with codeine.

katherinedibello (at) gmail (dot) com

I can definitely relate to the snacking that goes on when you work from home. My husband and I both work from home so we have to be very careful not to snack too much. However, I wouldn’t trade out working from home for anything in the world.