If you start with something bland, add something not good, and dilute those with a third thing that is usually perfectly fine except when combined with either of the first two things, the result can be something that tastes pretty awful.
Presently, I am waiting in the breakfast area of the hotel I am staying at, passing time while housekeeping finishes rearranging the used towels in my room. To be clear, it is well past breakfast and all that is left lying around on the counters are packets of condiments and various plastic utensils. I am thinking I shall try and locate some sort of coffee.
Eventually, I manage to dispense a styrofoam cup’s worth of stale, formerly hot but now quite tepid, water from the electric urn labeled hot water. That is the bland part. Then, I find a tea bag, fresh and unused, which I add to the water. Tea, while not coffee, at least has caffeine.
The tea tastes slightly metallic and not very good. To brighten it up a bit, I add a packet of non dairy creamer. I don’t like NDC, but whatever. Now it tastes worse, so I also add a packet of sugar and vigorously stir the whole mess with a stick made of plastic. It is not getting any better.
Rifling through the drawers and cupboards, I find a few packages of instant oatmeal. One is added to the “tea” concoction. Followed almost immediately by a packet of hot chocolate powder. The whole thing is nearly inedible.
A package of grape jelly ties the experiment together; what I have made is really, truly awful. I think some peanut butter might help, but there’s none around, so the effect is untested. Now the hard part is going to be to find a place to surreptitiously dispose of my creation, but fortunately, there are lots of empty cupboards in here.
—DG.
Inside Doug's Head 