Chicken-Rice Cake

Mom and Dad had decided to have chicken and rice soup for dinner one night. The chicken had been left to simmer down for a while when Dad passed through the kitchen and decided to add the rice. A few minutes later, Mom passed through the kitchen and decided to add the rice, since Dad never mentioned that he already had. Dad wandered back into the kitchen, looked into the pot, and decided there wasn't enough rice, so he added more. Mom remembered how much rice she had previously added and decided that wasn't enough. Without looking into the pot, she added more, locked the pressure lid down, set the jiggler and the timer, then left the room. As they sat down to watch a movie, their dinner continued cooking.

BANG! Thok, thok, thok ...

The massive amount of rice that had been added caused the jiggler to shoot off of the top of the pot. The rice was being fired through the open vent with such force that it was splattering across and sticking to the once-clean surface of the ceiling. There was a large glob that fell back down from the ceiling and landed on the top of the pressure cooker, whose hot surface causes the moist rice-pudding-ball to explode. Rice was everywhere. After a few moments of disbelief, Dad tossed a dishrag over the pot and took it off the heat. When the pot had stopped trying to launch rice and was cool enough to open, all that could be seen was rice. There was so much rice packed into that little pot that the brand of the pressure cooker could be read on the top of the world's first "Presto Chicken-Rice Cake".

Dog Food, Part II

Once a dog has been deprived of food and water, he will never forget the experience, and will likely be paranoid about it for the rest of their lives. One way you can cure that attitude is to make sure food is put out for him on a strict schedule. Unfortunately, sometimes humans don't adhere to any sort of schedule, much less a strict one. Dogs, however, will be there, waiting impatiently, because there is only now to a dog.

Mom and I had gone out to run some errands. Going grocery shopping wasn't one of them, but we passed by the store and we needed to restock the refridgerator. Having two sons will make that necessary on a regular basis. As we were filling up our cart, lunchtime passed us by. Not by that much, mind you; we were only half of an hour late getting home.

On the way in the door, I bumped into Mom, dropping about half of the groceries I had been laden down with. My mouth snapped shut on the unwise thing I was about to say when I saw why she had stopped so suddenly. Mom's shoes had stopped just before stepping into some kind of white powder that had been spread all over the kitchen. Stepping around her, I saw that the five-pound bag of flour that had been on the floor was now only a half-pound, the bag eaten down to the level of what was left.

We looked at each other, confused about how exactly this had occurred, until Duke came trotting around the corner. His eyebrows, snout, and chin were covered in flour. Just then, my brother arrived home from work and walked in on our white, silent scene.

"What the ..?" he began. Duke was standing in front of me, just out of view.

"Duke ate the flour," I said.

Never one to miss an opportunity, he promptly quipped, "Let's give him some water, he'll shit biscuits for a month!"

"Feed him some beans, we'll lose him in the cloud!" Well, I couldn't let my brother have all the fun.

Mom just rolled her eyes and left us to clean up.