Meatball Loaf

Directions:

1. Start out with grand expections of a delicious dinner, your husband's eyes smiling as he discovers one of his favorite meals awaiting him when he gets home from work.
2. Add in a bit of a headache, because your darling 5-1/2 month daughter probably won't sleep through the night until after your dear friend's baby - who, by the way, isn't even due until August.
3. Mix up your meat and other ingredients from this recipe, stopping every few minutes to get something for your whiny 2-1/2 year old, who for some reason gets up from naps in a cranky mood and is not satisfied with anything you offer her.
4. Spend at least 10 minutes forming soft meatballs that don't hold their form too well, but sure will taste good once they're baked.
5. Take four steps to the pre-heated oven, holding the tray of meatballs in your right hand.
6. As you slightly lean down to open the oven door, for no apparent reason whatsoever, drop the tray of meatballs.
7. Be sure some of the mushy meat mixture falls on your dishtowel, the oven door, your cabinet, and a good portion of it in a pile remarkably resembling vomit on your tile floor.
8. Also be sure that there are no discernable meat "balls" left on the tray, just one big lump.
9. Stand there in stunned silence. At least two minutes.
10. Realize that your previously noisy children have the sense to also be in reverent silence at the tragedy they have just beheld.
11. Notice that it is now 5:30 and your dear husband will soon be walking in the door and you have zero desire to touch any of that meat with your bare fingers again.
12. Salvage what you can, slop it into a casserole dish, and stick it in the oven.
13. Furiously clean up the piles on the floor before the dog rushes in to claim them.
14. Make the barbecue sauce. Do NOT cry in it.
15. Pour the sauce on the nearly baked meatball loaf and shove it back in the oven, not really caring what happens to it.
16. Finish the rest of dinner preparations.
17. Serve the meatball loaf to the family and realize that it's the tastiest meatloaf you've ever made and everyone (except previously mentioned cranky 2-1/2 year old) absolutely loves it.
18. Swear to never, ever drop a tray of meatballs again.
19. The end.

Directions:

1. Start out with grand expections of a delicious dinner, your husband's eyes smiling as he discovers one of his favorite meals awaiting him when he gets home from work.
2. Add in a bit of a headache, because your darling 5-1/2 month daughter probably won't sleep through the night until after your dear friend's baby - who, by the way, isn't even due until August.
3. Mix up your meat and other ingredients from this recipe, stopping every few minutes to get something for your whiny 2-1/2 year old, who for some reason gets up from naps in a cranky mood and is not satisfied with anything you offer her.
4. Spend at least 10 minutes forming soft meatballs that don't hold their form too well, but sure will taste good once they're baked.
5. Take four steps to the pre-heated oven, holding the tray of meatballs in your right hand.
6. As you slightly lean down to open the oven door, for no apparent reason whatsoever, drop the tray of meatballs.
7. Be sure some of the mushy meat mixture falls on your dishtowel, the oven door, your cabinet, and a good portion of it in a pile remarkably resembling vomit on your tile floor.
8. Also be sure that there are no discernable meat "balls" left on the tray, just one big lump.
9. Stand there in stunned silence. At least two minutes.
10. Realize that your previously noisy children have the sense to also be in reverent silence at the tragedy they have just beheld.
11. Notice that it is now 5:30 and your dear husband will soon be walking in the door and you have zero desire to touch any of that meat with your bare fingers again.
12. Salvage what you can, slop it into a casserole dish, and stick it in the oven.
13. Furiously clean up the piles on the floor before the dog rushes in to claim them.
14. Make the barbecue sauce. Do NOT cry in it.
15. Pour the sauce on the nearly baked meatball loaf and shove it back in the oven, not really caring what happens to it.
16. Finish the rest of dinner preparations.
17. Serve the meatball loaf to the family and realize that it's the tastiest meatloaf you've ever made and everyone (except previously mentioned cranky 2-1/2 year old) absolutely loves it.
18. Swear to never, ever drop a tray of meatballs again.
19. The end.