Life is…life is miserable. The people you love leave you because, apparently, you’re an “unlikeable, selfish ass” who is “incapable of feeling joy and experiencing love.” Pfft! Whatever, mom, dad, my friends, my ex-wife and son. You guys don’t know anything. I don’t need you. The lonely people of the world don’t need folks like you holding us down, preparing our meals for us because we’re starving and have always relied upon others to provide our meals for us.

Never fear, lonely people. I am here to help you feed yourself in your most desperate time so you can feel useful again, not to imply that you ever were. Not that I ever was…Jesus…this kitchen seems so much bigger without the smiling faces of my family in it.

Now that’s a breakfast

Anyway, here’s, uh, here’s some recipes for people that, uh…man, this is tough. I didn’t think being alone would make me feel so empty. Luckily, my pantry isn’t empty! So let’s fill the void in our souls that our loved ones left behind by stuffing our bellies with food – warm, loving food; food like a hug from the wife that never wants to see you again; a hug from a time when you two were happy.

Exclamation points are nothing more than pain masquerading as joy.

Meatloaf

Meatloaf conjures memories of a happier time. Your son, dirty and sweaty after playing with the dog, sitting down at the table with unwashed hands. “You’re not having some of your mom’s delicious meatloaf until you wash your hands, mister.” Ha!  That…that was perfect. The meatloaf, I mean. Not the memory. Pfft! Why would you want to feel unbridled peace and love again? You’re fine. You’re fine. I’m…I’m fine. Anyway, so, yeah – meatloaf.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 small Granny Smith apple, diced
• 1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. If you’re using a gas stove, don’t put your head in it. Yet.
2. Mix ground beef with water and milk in a large bowl, preferably the large red bowl your ex-wife bought when she splurged at Bed, Bath and Beyond. There was a hell of an argument after that, but she was right. We really did need that cheese grater. Using your hands, mix beef, water, and milk until evenly combined.
3. Mix bread crumbs, carrot, apple, onion, and egg into the beef.
4. Place beef mixture into a deep baking dish lined with tin foil. Form the beef into a loaf. Stare at the loaf. That brown-ish, red-ish mass of bloody cow viscera – that is your life; just a hunk of dead flesh nestled into a rectangular box that might as well be a coffin.
5. Tent with foil.
6. Bake for 1 hour, or until the pangs of hunger in your stomach rival the pangs of longing in your heart.
7. Remove tin foil tent and continue baking for an additional 30 minutes.
8. Remove meatloaf from oven. Allow it to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
9. Jesus…there’s so much meatloaf. The recipe makes 8 servings.
10. Set an additional 4 or 5 place settings at your newspaper-strewn dinner table. Serve each vacant seat a helping of meatloaf. Maybe someone will drop in unexpectedly, like death.

We’d give our left arm to have this again

Pancakes

Hey, remember when there used to be a reason to wake up? A time when the smell of a scrumptiously sweet breakfast cake grabbed you by the nose and dragged you out of bed like a cartoon character? Let’s make some of those wonderful pancakes again. Maybe the taste will jolt a happy thought loose that will fuel my morning routine, instead of the pack of Marlboro Reds I usually have for breakfast.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• cooking spray

1. Combine milk and vinegar in a bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to “sour,” much like your friendships…just curdling and rotting away slowly, taking on a distrusting malodorous funk.
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir.
3. Whisk the eggs and butter into soured milk, creating an unctuous hell-brew of slop and stank that can repel even your most cherished of longtime buddies. Especially Kevin. Kevin hated how unctuous I had become. I’m sorry, Kevin. I just want to go fishing with my homie again.
4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and whisk until batter is smooth and the lumps are gone. But they’ll never be gone, will they? Not truly. Not ever.
5. Heat a large skillet – the one you imagined bludgeoning yourself with – and coat it with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cup of the batter onto the skillet, cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip, cook until the other side is browned.
6. Eat about 4 pancakes, and use the 12 extras to ball-up and throw at passersby that seem to be happy.

Thanksgiving Turkey

No. Just…no. I can’t do this.

Ingredients

• 1 whole turkey
• Other things that make turkey taste good
• F^*% you
• My therapist was wrong – writing this guide is not helping.
• A set of matches

1. Use what money you have left to buy the finest bottle of scotch you can find.
2. Put the stuff that makes a turkey taste good on the turkey.
3. Turn on oven. What temperature? Hot. Just go with hot. Whatever’s hot enough to cook a turkey. If you’re cooking with a gas stove, as I am, leave the oven door open.
4. Toss the turkey in the oven.
5. Drink the scotch as the gas fills the room.
6. Give a toast to the picture of your family mounted on the wall. Use as many disparaging words as possible. Make lewd hand gestures whenever you can fit them in.
7. Finish the scotch. Spark a match.
8. The explosion and fire will burn at about 1100 degrees, cooking your turkey in about 3 seconds.
9. Die knowing you left some food in the oven from some fire fighters. At least you did something right.

Really, aren’t they ALL lifesavers?
…No. The answer is no.

Luis Prada‘s work can be found on Cracked, FunnyCrave, The Smoking Jacket, and GuySpeed. If you visit his Tumblr page, The Devil Wears Me, he will give you a non-refundable virtual hug. 

For more Luis, check out his recent roundup of Five Times Fake Breasts Saved Lives –>