A Cock-up on the Catering Front

Example of a Cock-up on the Linguistic Front (1)

For further explanation, go to footnote 1, for my story of a cock-up on the culinary front, read on:

You would have thought that someone with a food blog would want to cook for their friends, especially those they don't see all that often, those who have to travel a fair few miles, friends like my 'girls': 'my College friends'. -- 'College' and 'girls' both being somewhat misleading, as the place where we met was a Polytechnic, and the time so long ago that none of us fit the description of 'girl' anymore (though some of us try...).

I can't even start to express how much I wished I had cooked.

But as soon as we approached Monday, I knew I'd be working flat out just getting the rooms sorted. Somehow or other, I have never actually defined "A lot on my plate" in terms of the long list of items that I should be doing, or more precisely, should have been doing for quite some time. For quite some decades!
Without going into the question which mental condition this is symptomatic for, beyond straight-forward procrastination, suffice it to say that the list has never got any shorter, or the plate any emptier. Empty, in actual fact, does not seem to be in my user manual - every room of the house is so crammed full of stuff that only on a good day may you venture from one end to the other and open the curtains or the window. (It isn't yet quite a case of "tunnels only"(2), but we're getting there.)


Now, instead of getting on with it immediately, Monday was dedicated to mourning the Crown Prince's departure, which prompted me to start a new blog. The usual delaying tactic of rather writing about your inadequacies than doing anything about them. To cut a long story short, it wasn't before Wednesday that I started attacking Ben's filthy room (I gathered 2 washing baskets full of dirty clothes in the process), and with a whole day spent at Aston University for the Matthew Boulton lectures on Thursday, it wasn't until the arrival day itself that I managed to cut trenches into the jungle that is Dom's old room.

There was no time to shop, let alone cook. A take away it was going to be. We ventured out and had a look at the plethora of restaurants/take-aways in walking distance (3 Chinese, 2 Pizza places, 2 Indian restaurants, and a Fish & Chips). We chose Chinese and ordered 3 Vegetarian dishes and one with King Prawns. To our utter shock and horror, when we got home and opened the dishes, we found that all of the Vegetarian options contained meat - chicken, beef, prawns, all thrown in, as if to say - you didn't specify which, so we've given you a mixture. It was awful, because our Vegetarian friend now didn't have anything to eat other than egg fried rice and noodles. What on earth were they thinking? It was very late and we were very hungry, so we didn't even take it back.
Has anybody else ever had such a strange experience?
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(1)
For the derivation and meaning of 'cock-up', see here.
For 'Lost in Translation in Swansea', see here.
(2)
For further reference, see here and here.