A story for @hels. And for anyone else who needs some commiseration:

Once, years ago, my dad fucked up spaghetti. It had been one of those days for him, I guess. Woke up early, got home late, behind the whole time. Stressed. Spaghetti for dinner. Easy peasy. Carbonara, I think.

Anyway, he'd called everyone to dinner as the past finished cooking, a large bowl filled with eggs and cheese and porky goodness waiting alongside. He probably had to call us a few times. He was probably growing irritated. Like I said, it had been one of those days.

So we amble in, almost certainly bickering, and he strains the pasta. Despite our straggling, we were probably complaining that dinner isn't already on the table. He's at about a 12 on the 1-10 annoyance scale.

He dumps the pasta on top of the egg mixture, and grabs two large metal spoons. Why two large metal spoons, I will never know. He goes to toss the pasta with the egg mixture, and we're just moments away from a gloriously glossy, instantly comforting pasta dinner.

The spoons, being two concave metal surfaces, slip past each other on the first toss. Pasta goes everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Raw egg, cheese and bacon (don't judge, dad always uses bacon) along with it. Dad is covered in pasta and egg. There is egg on the ceiling.

Time stops. Dad is frozen. Four heartbeats? Five? Ten thousand? Time restarts. Dad looks up, pauses for a sigh. Drops the spoons into the bowl. "Well," he growls in both anguish and stoic resignation, "I guess we can never have *pasta* again." Everybody died laughing. Dead. Done.

It took him a second, and then he laughed too. We ordered pizza.

Now, that phrase is family slang for a very particular sort of failure. The sort that really kind of doesn't matter, but is also absofuckinglutely the last goddamn straw.

You say it when the bottom falls out of your sack of groceries. You say it when you finally get all the squabbling kids dressed and out of the house and to the park on a beautiful sunny day and then the skies open up on you. I've never gotten to say it in its original context.

Until 9/10/19. I was making Carbonara. It had been one of those days. I'd gotten up at 4, home at 7. I was in a rush. Kids were fighting. Everything was ready to go. I just needed to drain pasta. I couldn't find the colander, I couldn't find the right lid. I slipped. Just a bit.

Well ... I guess we can never have pasta again.