Hungry for Pancakes and Brains

This is from a few years ago...


When my Mom left on a short trip to Utah to see her Mother she told my sister and I to use all of our brains while she was away. It didn't last long. Ok, maybe four hours really is a long time! It was great though! I played in the snow for an hour. After that I read my book (The Hobbit) for another hour! There was really only one thing I was worried about. Food. How was I going to eat while the provider of food was gone? The woman who could create a plethora of food at her fingertips had left and I had to fix my own food? It's true she had talked to us about what we could cook and what we should cook, but still. I had to be responsible? But she had shown confidence in my abilities so I thought I actually had some great hidden power to cook at my fingertips!  My sister Annelise and I had decided to make pancakes for dinner. Easy and yummy. I found the recipe and we tripled it just like Mom had said to do. I wrote down all the right measurements for a tripled batch of pancakes. I did the dry ingredients and Annelise did the wet. I was making orange juice by the time my sister got to putting the butter in. "Nine cups of butter!?" She asked. "Is that what it says?" "Yeah," " Then put nine cups in." It sounded funny, but that's what I had written, so it had to be right! I had been so careful! I watched as my sister scoured the fridge for nine cups of butter. "Is it ok if we only have eight cups?" "That's a big difference. We should probably have at least eight and a half." "Oh! I found nine!!" Oh good! Now our pancakes would be perfect! But that still seemed like a lot of butter. I  made a mental note that we would need to get more butter. Annelise started melting the butter in the microwave two sticks at a time in a glass measuring cup. It was then I suggested she use a big glass bowl instead. "It will be a lot faster." I said. And it would have been!  She had unwrapped about seven sticks of butter when I really began to question the amount. "What is the measurement in the book?" I asked my sister. She looked for about twenty seconds and then said, "Three teaspoons. Tripled it makes nine teaspoons." I had goofed. Screwed up. Erred.  Oops. Now I had to store seven sticks of unwrapped butter. I saran wrapped them. With the melted butter I figured we'd have popcorn later. Honestly I'm just glad my Dad laughed when I told him about it. I remembered what my Mom had told me before she left. To use all of my brain. But that's not possible, is it? But Scienceray, a website that insists to have the perfect sciencey fact for you, says  "Scientists and others in the psychological, sociological fields have asserted that humans use maybe .01 to .10 percent of our brain. Without getting all science geek about it there is an easier way of understanding what that means. First let us clarify, mechanically you use 100% of your brain. Maximizing usage is another subject. So when someone puts a percentage of use on the brain they do not mean that the other say 90% is dormant or useless." I kind of agree! But then again this is the same website that believes they've discovered a 9,400 year old dog. Maybe I should think again? Maybe I should get all "science geek" about it. But my Mom told me to use all of my brain and as everybody knows mothers know best! So maybe they did discover a nine thousand four hundred year old dog after all! Well really all I know is that I didn't use the right amount of brain that I should have. I couldn't believe she was going to be gone for four whole days! They were good pancakes though.