This choice: Plug in the Delish-O-Wand. • Go Back... A pot of spaghetti bubbles away on the stove. You're not a master chef or anything, but you can whip up something easy like pasta and garlic bread well enough. In just a few minutes, you should have enough food for you and your mom, with some left over for when your dad gets back from work.
You pick up the Meal-O-Matic -- now with the Delish-O-Wand inserted into one of the apertures -- and try to figure out exactly how it's supposed to make the food delicious. The instructions didn't mention this, and the shape of the wand itself (a metal bar with a blunt, spherical tip) doesn't really give you any clues about what you're supposed to do. The most obvious thing would be stirring it, so you dip the end into the boiling water and give it a few flicks of your wrist. The noodles drift lazily around the pot for a minute, but nothing else seems to happen.
You pull it out and point it at the pot like a futuristic gun. Set phasers to 'delicious', you think to yourself, playing with the buttons on the side. To your surprise, a few sparks actually play along the length of the rod. Whoa! Hoping that's what's supposed to happen and not an electrical malfunction, you put the rod back in the pot and press the button again. A blue glow suffuses the water, so bright that for a moment the spaghetti looks like black snakes against the searing light. Then it's gone, leaving a fading afterimage against your eyes.
"John? Did something happen in there?" your mom calls from the next room.
"Nothing!" you say hastily. "Hold on, it's almost ready!" You pour out and drain the spaghetti, plop it into a large bowl, and cover it with a layer of meat sauce. Grabbing the garlic bread from the toaster over, you head to the table.
You nibble on a piece of the bread while your mom helps herself to a healthy serving of spaghetti. At the first bite, her green eyes open wide.
"Oh my god, John! This is fantastic!" she says. "What did you put in this?"
"Uh, nothing. I just used the Meal-O-Matic."
"It's -- mmph -- it's got to be more than that," she says around a second, enormous bite. "This is really, really good!"
"Uh. Thanks?"
Your mother demolishes the meal in record time and helps herself to more, all the while enthusing over what a fantastic job you've done. By the time she's working on her fourth plate, it's getting a little embarrassing; all you did was slop sauce over regular spaghetti. It's not like it's a sumptuous Italian feast or anything!
Setting her fork down on her scraped-clean plate, your mother wipes a bit of sauce from her mouth. She's just eaten enough food to hold a normal person for a couple of days, but still, she looks longingly at the half-full dish.
"You can have more if you want, Mom."
"I... I really shouldn't," she says, stifling a belch. "That's your share."
"Uh... I'm less hungry than I thought," you say. "Go ahead." The truth is, you're a little wary about putting it in your mouth now, after seeing what it's done to your mother -- the second you say 'go ahead', she's scooping another mound of noodles onto her plate. She looks like she's barely holding back the urge to ditch the fork and just stuff food into her mouth with her hands.
Barely slowing, she demolishes the entire bowl, and slouches back in her chair. "That... that was unbelievable," she sighs. "My baby's going to be a master chef!"
"It was just spaghetti, mom."
"It was the best spaghetti I've ever tasted, by -- by about a hundred times." She groans, shifting uncomfortably. Her stomach is so distended that you can see the bulge even under the baggy, ratty sweater she's got on. "I think I had one helping too many."
Her cheeks puff out as she belches with a quiet burff.
"Maybe... maybe make that two too many."
"Well, you didn't have to eat all of it."
"I couldn't help myself. It was just... so... good!" She smiled dreamily. "Keep cooking like that, and I'll have to raise your allowance! Oh, I should have left some for you, though, poor thing."
"Uh, I'm okay. I've got bread." You're going to have to be careful with this thing, you decide. If you'd made a little more spaghetti, you could have put your mother in the hospital! It was obvious she would gobble down every scrap of food prepared with the Meal-O-Matic; there wasn't a noodle left anywhere on the table, not even a piece of one. You were a little surprised that she hadn't licked the bowl clean.
Then again, you realize, you hadn't used the device on the sauce...
Your mother winces as she stands up. "Ugh. I think... I think I need to lie down for a while."
"No more garages sales, then?"
"Are you kidding?"
Wow -- she's actually too stuffed to shop. That's a first. It looks like you have the rest of the afternoon off! Not only that, but you've been offered a raise in allowance if you keep the food coming. That was one dollar well spent, you think to yourself.
And who knows what other doors this miracle food could unlock? If everyone loves it as much as your mom does, you could score some major points...
You decide to keep experimenting. You'll cook up another dish using the Delish-O-Wand, and...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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