Kids, don't try this at home! (Or, the blog about how my creative chef skills are crap.)

So, there's a pre-story to this story. Whenever something of mine would break, I'd bring it to my dad to fix. When I was old enough to get the joke, he finally started telling me to RTFM (or, for those of you who haven't been told this before: Read The F*ing Manual). It used to irritate me to no end, as I just wanted my broken item fixed, and I knew he'd be able to fix it immediately. But in the end, it was good for me, as I learned a lot.

Apparently, however, I did not learn enough. Reading the instructions is important folks, and here's why:

When my friend Michelle moved out of the dorms last year she gave me some of her non-perishable food. One of these things was a taco seasoning packet, and until tonight, it stayed on a shelf in my kitchen. But tonight I decided to spice up my burger dinner and I got the brilliant idea to make a taco burger. I love the taste of the meat in tacos, and I thought...well this is a great idea. I'll just put the taco seasoning into the pound of ground beef I have, make it into 3 or 4 burger patties, cook one and save the ones I don't cook. I'll even top it with some cheddar cheese slices, and it'll be delicious. As I was imagining my taco burger and how good it would be, I even planned into the future: next time I make taco burgers I'll also make a "special sauce" out of salsa and just a little bit of sour cream to put on top, and I'll have lettuce. It'll be brilliant!

So I worked the seasoning into the ground beef, made my burger patties, and cooked the one I was going to eat. I topped it with cheese and sat down, eager to try my new invention. Turns out, whatever it is that makes the ground beef taste so good in tacos...does not work in burger form. It wasn't that it was too strong or flavorful; it didn't even really taste like taco meat. It just tasted GRODY. So the instructions on the back of the taco seasoning packet are indeed important: it doesn't work unless you brown the meat first, and then add the seasoning and the water.

But didn't it sound like a good idea at least?