My mum is somewhat ace
Despite her major shortcomings, having depression and anger issues, and in latter years becoming resentful towards everyone and everything and systematically destroying the family with the above problems, she is/was an ace person to be around when she's having a good day.

So it was, about 6 years ago, that me and my younger brother decided to take it upon ourselves to cook our mum dinner for mothers day. Unsupervised. By ourselves. Normally, we couldn't cook for shite, often managing to set the fire alarm off before even starting cooking. As this was when I was 16, and I had yet to leave for uni and gain cooking skills there, my younger brother would have been about 12. My mum just sighed and grinned and let us, my dad had decided to flee the premises temporarily to get extra food supplies.

We decided to do chicken on a bed of salad and cold pasta with some kind of sauce, I can't remember what one exactly for reasons that will soon unfold.

I start by cutting the chicken up, almost losing a finger at one point. This is par for the course, so I just wash the cut and plaster it up and begin frying the chicken. My brother is in charge of pasta, as it is bloody hard to bollocks up pasta. He starts boiling it, and makes the salad (open salad bag, empty contents into bowl, mix, empty from bowl onto plates).

By now, we're impressing both ourselves and our mum by the fact we haven't destroyed the kitchen. I'm sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish factory from a mix of the heat and the pressure to not bollocks this up.

The pasta is ready by now. Unfortunately, my brother has only ever seen pasta being made on the TV and never in person, and doesn't realise that the steam is hot. He has his face above the saucepan when he empties it into the colander, and of course, gets a faceful, fnarr fnarr.

His reaction is instantaneous. He screeches like a wounded pig, and swings the now empty saucepan in a wild arc, mostly from shock, and clips the bottle of brandy we had set up nearby the sink to flambe the chicken with. Unfortunately, it is also nearby the oven, due to the way that the room was built. Brandy goes spraying everywhere, including all over the frying pan.

What happens next is like a scene out of Apocalypse Now. Fire goes spraying everywhere. Up the blinds nearby. All across the top of the oven. Me and my brother are stood, paralyzed by the shock of FIRE EVERYWHERE! The fire alarm has kicked in by now, and my dad who was just walking in through the door with the shopping, drops it all and grabs the nearby fire extinguisher and sprays the fire, the food and us with it.

To my ever-eternal relief, my mum just sighs and grins at the aftermath and shakes her head and orders a takeaway instead after me and my brother have cleaned up.

Apologies for length, she was impressed.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Tue 16 Feb 2010, 15:08, Reply)