I am, dear readers, clumsy.

This afternoon I was sauteing onions, green peppers, and carrots to put into a slow-cooker soup. I used my cast iron skillet—I always use cast iron because it was an AMAZING wedding gift and because it’s good for vegetarians like myself. But when I hoisted the skillet to dump the vegetables into the slow cooker, I wasn’t quite prepared for the weight, and I proceeded regardless. I discovered, however, when I turned my wrist to pour out the contents, that the side of my index finger was touching the gap between the handle mitt and the edge of the skillet itself.

Ouch.

That skillet probably weighs 10 pounds, and I knew I couldn’t drop it onto our cheapo ceramic apartment tile or I’d be facing a far worse disaster, one that would require a phone call to our evil property managers. Instead, I tried to get the skillet back to the stove… and I managed to spill a chopped onion, a minced green pepper, and a crapload of chopped baby carrots, all cooked in olive oil, on the tile.

I then sat down and had a teacup full of wine. (The wineglasses were in a cabinet over the mess.)

You see, this isn’t the first kitchen incident I’ve had—and most of my kitchincidents are more catastrophic than inconvenient. In the most famous accident, I dropped a mixing bowl full of half-mixed cookie dough on the floor, throwing flour and moist dough all over the floor, ceiling, cabinets, and appliances. I even had flour in the part of my hair. In the process, I broke the mixing bowl and the hand mixer, and I managed to chip the grout of the tile.

Once, I mistakenly added a tablespoon of powdered cayenne to our pizza sauce instead of a teaspoon. That was some seriously spicy pizza, and my poor husband manfully ate it anyway.

The cats stay clear when I’m in the kitchen.

I’m actually a pretty good cook: really, I am! If you like spicy vegetarian chilli, homemade pizza, or blueberry crumb muffins, come to me and I’ll blow your mind. But it’s hard to get a reputation for culinary excellence when, every few times you cook something, you turn a clean kitchen into a disaster area no one would dare enter without steel-toed boots and a hazmat suit.

Is anyone else this clumsy? Please, make me feel better and tell me a similarly shameful story.