Heck's Kitchen

“What’ll it be for dinner, Toodles ol’ chum? Taco Bell or Krystal?” I ask while swatting a week’s worth of Taco Bell and Krystal wrappers off the couch. They rain down on Toodles’ head as he angrily looks up at me with his black, beady eyes.

“For the last time, Nathan, I don’t eat. Stop buying me food!” He motions with his flippers to a pile of uneaten burgers and tacos on the counter, the stench of which hits my nostrils as if on cue.

“Remind me again why you don’t eat? Because if it’s the caliber of food you’re complaining about, I’ll remind you that those were Doritos Locos tacos, buddy. The filet mignon of tacos!” I exclaim, pronouncing each word phonetically.

Mr. Toodles has the defeated look of a man who has to explain calculus to monkeys. “Because”, he says softly in a feeble attempt to quell an outburst, “I am a Pillow Pet.”

That's exactly what someone pretending to be a Pillow Pet would say...

“Wait, I thought you were a penguin? Penguins eat food, right? Because I made a list of animals that don’t eat food one time, and the only thing on it was ‘puppies’.”

“YOU HAVE TO FEED PUPPIES!” Toodles shouts. I reflect silently and regretfully on this new information as he collects his cool. “As I have told you before, I am a Pillow Pet first and a penguin second. It’s true that Pillow Pets do not eat food, and they also do not talk. And you’ve been having a conversation with one, so…” His words trail off, and I can tell he expects me to fill in the rest of the sentence. I stare at him quizzically.

“Soooooo,” I say while looking around the room, stalling for time. “I’mmmmm…..also a Pillow Pet?”

“No, you idiot! You are a human and you’re having another sanity break!” Mr. Toodles sinks his beak into his cottony flippers.

“Oh. That makes more sense,” I assure him, even though there is no cause for assurance. “But I usually have these breaks when I’m stressed out, and things have been really chill recently. What gives?”

Mr. Toodles ponders for a moment and then replies, “I have a theory that this sanity break is actually caused by the fever dreams of a physical illness. Also, I am manifest from the part of your brain that wants help dealing with change and to help you grow as a person. Losing your job, moving to a new city – I’ve been with you for all of that. I think my duty this time is to get you to stop eating terrible fast food so much.”

“Illness? Eating terribly? Why do you think that?”

“Because,” he replies while pacing the floor, “you are currently eating from the moldy taco and hamburger pile.”

I look down to see that Toodles was right, I had been furiously double fisting green beef into my face throughout our entire conversation. “Owf, tha makth thenth,” I mumble, my mouth full of food.

“Come now. We’re going to the grocery store and you’re going to learn to cook real food like a normal human being.” Toodles bats my ankles and I follow as he waddles out to my car. I obediently drive to the grocery store and walk in with him cradled under my right arm like a football.

“Okay, Nathan, first thing’s first. What ingredients do you already have back at home?”

“Well let’s see.” I lovingly stroke Toodles’ head while perusing the produce aisle. I notice a few customers giving me odd looks, and I decide that they must’ve left their Pillow Pets at home. “I’ve got a pile of moldy hamburgers, some expired milk, and a few cans of Coke.”

Toodles scrunches up his face. “Well that’s not going to make a very pretty casserole. How much cooking experience do you have, anyway?”

“Exactly none. Unless you count that time I cooked fish in a George Foreman Grill. But you probably shouldn’t, because it looked and tasted like rubber bands.”

“Well then we’d better start small.” I nod my head in agreement as I scratch behind his ears. I receive more funny looks from people passing by, and I decide that they wish I was scratching behind their ears. “If you want to be taken seriously, you’ve got to start trying harder, though. How is it that you’ve been living by yourself for nine years and you’ve never actually cooked a meal? This skill might come in handy sometime and might help you persuade others to think that you are, in fact, a functioning adult.”

“You’re right, Toodles! What should I cook?”

“Hamburger Helper,” he responds. “It’s like training wheels for your kitchen. You’ll need a pound of ground beef.”

“A real, home cooked meal!” I take off running towards the meat aisle but stop when I see a very pretty woman carefully selecting items from the meat cooler. I run my hand through my hair, tighten Toodles in a more secure hold, and confidently stroll over next to her shopping cart. “Haha! Silly us,” I chuckle while waggling my eyebrows in what I would describe as a seductive fashion. “Our hands just touched while reaching for the same package of beef.” I increase the intensity of my eyebrow waggles. You can never be too forward with your eyebrows.

The woman looks startled, but calmly and slowly says, “No, actually you grabbed my hand while it was resting on my cart.”

“Dangit, I meant to time that better,” I say dejectedly. An awkward pause cuts a hole in our conversation that I desperately try to fill with the ferocity of my eyebrow dance.

Seen here interpreted by a zero gravity performance group

“Um, I’m going to go now,” she says and starts to pull away.

“Wait! I, uh, noticed you shopping for meat. I’m kind of a great chef myself. Well not a great chef per se, more of a this-is-my-first-trip-down-the-meat-aisle chef. Mr. Toodles here is about to teach me how to-.”

She cuts me off mid-sentence. “Is that a Pillow Pet in your hands?” I look down at Toodles, and he discreetly shakes his head.

“What? This? No, this is my…” I am searching for a suitable answer, my eyebrows now gyrating obscenely at mach speed. “…service animal.”

She considers my answer for a moment, but then quickly pushes her cart past me and Mr. Toodles. She does not stop for the cashiers and is running by the time she hits the parking lot. “Whew, I dodged a bullet, Toodles. That one’s a thief!”

Toodles has the absurdly impossible look of a man that has to explain monkeys to calculus. “Let’s just get home so I can teach you how to cook Hamburger Helper. All you do is put the meat in the pan and poke it until it turns brown, then add the noodles. There are all sorts of things you can cook at home, and once you master all of these simple, third-grade level steps, you won’t have to waste your money and subtract years of your lifespan by eating fast food twice a day.”

I proudly scoop up two packages of ground beef. “One for me and one for you. No fast food for us tonight!” I beam as my eyebrows finally calm to their resting position atop my supraorbital ridge.

Mr. Toodles sighs deeply.

I want to shake that hand's hand.