A Man Harrassed While Making Rice

I was sitting around today, just letting my mind pick its own way around when I remembered something that made me snicker:

Rob was cooking dinner for us a few visits ago. He was making lemon pepper tilapia over brown rice and I was thrilled about it because I love fish. He'd gotten out a small sauce pan and was filling it with water for the rice.

Jim: Are you sure that pan's big enough?

Rob: Yeah.

Jim: I don't know, it looks small.

Rob: I've made rice in this pan before, dude. It's fine.

Jim: You used a lot of rice; I think it's gonna boil over.

Rob: It's brown rice, it doesn't cook the same!

Jim: Yeah, but-

Rob shot him an exasperated look. I smelled an oncoming testosterone-fueled culinary argument, and spoke up to derail it before it could boil over like the rice in question.

Me: Honey, I'm sure he's perfectly capable of making rice in his own kitchen. He looks like he might have done this before.

Jim looked dubiously at the pan size, but elected not to say anything else. I could see his control-freakism urging him upward to avert what was surely to be a boiling-over pot of rice, and I silently applauded him for not giving in. Then Angie walked in.

Angie: What doin?

Rob: Making rice.

Angie: Why don't you just use the rice cooker?

Jim and I nearly peed ourselves! Rob gave her a long-suffering, Et Tu, Brute? look as we laughed our asses off. Against mounting opposition, Rob studiously ignored us all, using his small pan to make the rice.

It's a good thing it never boiled over- I don't think he could've ever lived that one down.