Tuna Awry

The other day Mad made tuna melts at a friend’s house. I do occasionally let the kids help me cook, but apparently not as much as I should. Ever since her fantastic tuna melt making experience she has wanted to repeat the magic in her own kitchen. Which I take to mean, she wants to watch ME make tuna melts and clean up, and so, I have been putting her off. I do know my kids. That child is relentless when she has an idea. She clutches it in her obsessive little brain, like a pit bull clutches a bone in it's jaws. She woke up this morning saying


“Dad said I could make the tuna melts for lunch today”

First of all it is 9:00 am, not lunch time in my mind. Second of all, if dad said you could, then you should make them tonight while I am at work and he can supervise and clean up. I’m just saying. All I have to say about that is a very sarcastic “Thanks Dear”.

Anyway it is clear she is not going to let the gosh darn tuna melt thing alone until she finally makes them, fine!

“Go ahead, BUT if you want to make them YOU are making them yourself.”

“Oh, yes I know, I know how I made them at B’s”As she retreats into the kitchen.

I can hear her banging in there, so I am thinking maybe….But that was short lived.

She remerges holding an unopened tuna can. “Do you have to drain this?”

“Yeah, after you open it you do. Didn’t you go over this when you made these at B’s”

Off she goes again to bang around in the kitchen some more.

Only to reappear with “How am I supposed to open this anyway?”

“You have to be kidding me! So in all of your 12 years of life you have never seen me open a can? I can’t believe that! You said YOU were going to make it yourself! Think hard. How did you guys get the can opened at B’s?”

“Umm, I don’t know….should I just get a knife and try to poke it in and saw it off?”

“That is a great idea. Just bear in mind, I am not dressed yet and I am not taking ANYONE to the ER today, period!”
She is off again, more banging. Ok, I just know she isn’t trying to poke the lid with a knife! Bang, bang, bang.

“Ok, you need to stop! Don’t be ridiculous!”

“What???” obliviously “do we have one of those things that opens cans?” Holding a can that has obviously been pierced with a stake knife.

“Did you look for one of those things that open cans?” We have cupboards full of cans and she has never pondered how they got opened?

“Maybe if you look for one you would find one. But I am not doing it for you.”

Now I am thinking she is 12, she is in the 8th grade; she is just doing the helpless thing, as usual. I could completely take care of myself by the time I was 9 years-old. I am not falling for this. Eventually after more banging, complaining and questions, she emerges triumphantly from the kitchen with Tuna melts! We all sit down and enjoy our tuna “lunch” together. Not until I finish and go into the kitchen to survey the damage do I notice the tuna can and the can opener…somehow she had opened the can sideways!

All I can do at this point is wondering where my parenting went awry. In my quest to provide my children a loving attentive mother, I have inadvertently neglected the all important how to open tuna can lesson.  I vow to do better, after all college is just a quick 5 years away for her, and can opening is an integral part of the college experience. Next up…tomorrow Ramen!