Perils of a frenzied cook

  This might be one of those "You had to be there" sort of stories; but with a little imagination, this could work.
  Setting: Dinner time
  Location: Our kitchen
  Circumstances: David's numerous claims of starvation; Dad being late getting home from work (forcing all of us to have to wait to have dinner); Mom being busy trying to make dinner, pick up Malia from work, get to dance on time, etc.

Story:
   Mom got some veggies steaming on the stove to go with our dinner of a tasty pasta dish that we all love. So once the veggies were going, she went around doing all the other things she was hoping to get done before it was time to eat. Malia got picked up from work, and now we were all sitting around wondering what was taking Dad so long to get home. David was only slightly cranky as he reminded me that he'd been up since 4:00am to work, hadn't gotten a very good nap once he came home, and now he was starving.
   We've all learned a lesson now that we need to be a little more helpful for Mom because no one can successfully accomplish all the little things she was trying to do, and have it all turn out right. Just a few minutes before Dad got home, we all started to realize that something smelled extremely burnt, and it was coming from the kitchen. Kelani came downstairs where the rest of us kids were and told us the water had all boiled down in the veggie pan and that's where the smell was coming from.
   So despite the pan itself being burned, Mom reassured us that she'd tasted the food and it didn't taste burned. (But with that smell, it was hard to believe). If we had helped Mom with a thing or two, the veggies wouldn't have been forgotten and the intoxicating burn smell wouldn't have been so bad that we all tasted it, even though we were sitting downstairs.
   Finally Dad got home and naturally the first thing he said was, "What happened in here?" So it was explained and we all sat down to eat. As Dad started serving the pasta, it was a little watery around the edges (which it's usually not) so he asked if something had gone wrong with that, too. 
  Anyway, Mom wasn't getting too happy about all the complaints that were going on; and of course any one's mistakes in our family are immediately a target for jokes and getting made fun of. David showed no mercy as we all dished up a helping of the pitiful, soggy, gray broccoli and carrots (yes, we still had to eat them). And I'm not going to lie, I had a forkful of them and as I put it up to my mouth, there's that little inhale you take right before a bite, and as I did that all I got a huge taste of the flavor of the burned smell.
   David grimaced (some of it was exaggerated, but there was still too much truth behind it) as he shoveled it in. In fact, I think I saw his eyes watering a little before he managed to swallow. We were all laughing until it was our turn to try them.
    Anyway, the veggies went down - eventually- and we saved the pasta for last, to ease the pain.
 Mom was still discouraged, even though she had been laughing, too. But then Dad came along. What he didn't know was that Mom had also made muffins for breakfast, and they were good, but sort of plain.
     So once Dad ate dinner, he got a muffin and after one bite, he looked at it and said, "Where did the muffins come from?" I could tell by his face and the tone of his voice, there was something he didn't like about them. So trying to spare Mom any more degradation, I quickly started signaling Dad to stop saying whatever he was about to say next.
     He looked at me curiously as he continued about the muffins, "They're gr-...." And before he could finish his sentence I loudly said, "Great!" Just then he caught on what I was doing, and said, "They're great!" But he was trying not to laugh, and by now Mom understood what had just happened, so pretty soon all of us were in tears from laughing so hard.

  To be fair, Mom's cooking really is good and this isn't a usual occurrence; in fact that's probably why it was so fun to joke about. So she told us she'd given up cooking, and she went and got ready to go to dance class.

   The "cherry on top" of this story was that once we'd all finished eating, and started to clean up, Kelani leaned over to me with a mischievous grin and whispered, "I didn't even eat any of my veggies!"