Bad Karma? Bad Timing? Bad Luck?

"I've got this thing in my freezer and I don't know how to cook it."

The conversation with my friend and workmate, Tony started innocently enough. A frozen beef tip roast has been sitting in my freezer taking up valuable space and despite my collection of cookbooks, none of them has been able to provide me with a simple enough, yet worthy recipe of how I may prepare it. I figured, if anybody, a fellow carnivore may be able to share some insights, perhaps those involving carbon and a little flame. However, the conversation didn't go that way. At least, not at first…

"Dead Cat"

The comment elicited a snicker from Tony. As an amateur humorist, I took this as a cue to go on.

"Yeah… I've still got the collar and everything. It reads, 'Alice'."

Now, this comment (as I was hoping it would) elicited a response from Tony's cubicle neighbor, Maria. The whole reason I said it was because I know she'd be listening and she has a cat named Alice. Maria is also a friend of mine and part of my personality is to tease people about things like that. Morally wrong, I know, but it's all in good fun and generally received as such.

Maria did say that Alice has been getting out recently where she is predominantly an indoor cat. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to keep the bit going, I continued.

"Yeah, it's a long walk for her from Buckeye to my house in Mesa. No wonder she was so tired walking in the middle of the street."

I wrapped it up shortly after that, not wanting to overstay my welcome and we all had to get back to work. I did ask Tony however, if he had any ideas how to cook the beef tip roast I had in my freezer. Being a fellow carnivore, and fan of food, not to mention being 15 years my senior, I thought he could impart some culinary wisdom. Not so. He apologetically said to me that he was better at eating food than cooking it. I made another joke at his expense about not knowing how to microwave popcorn and walked back to my desk.

The following day, on my way over to my desk to start the day, Tony motioned me over to his desk. Maria wasn't there, but I hadn't noticed. He told me that my timing couldn't have been worse. Perplexed by the comment, I asked him why. He told me that Maria's cat, Alice was hit by a car that morning and she went home. I'm not completely soulless, but part of me couldn't help but chuckle at the sheer irony of the whole thing.

Maria's parting words to Tony were, "Be sure to give Glenn a hard time about this," but he too, was laughing at the irony. I know what its like to lose a pet by way of vehicle and I am still sad about it almost 3 years later. After all that, I'm still left with a frozen hunk of beef, shrink-wrapped and taking up valuable space in my freezer. I'll cook it one of these days, I just don't know how…