The Death of My Skillet

When you move out on your own, one of the most common things people say is that you will eat all the garbage food because it’s cheap and easy. I like to live my life in spite so I chose to predominantly cook meals at home. Proper, decent-for-you meals because I wanted to take care of myself and not fall into the habit of buying instant noodles and frozen dinners all the time. I tended to meal prep all my food for the week on sunday and on one of those fateful days I decided to make falafels. It seemed easy enough: pour the mix in a bowl, add some water and oil, and mush it all together, then take that mush and fry it as little patties on a skillet. 
Oh my skillet. My beautiful skillet. With its pristine white color and pale, wood handle. I bought it randomly at Winners before I had even planned on moving out. I just wanted a nice skillet to make my own lunches on. It was one of two that I owned when I migrated to my murder building. The other was naught but a wee single-egg skillet, not ideal for anything but. 
As directed, I plopped the falafel mix in batches onto the skillet that had a decent amount of very hot oil in it (as said to do on the box). I made about three before I realized they were beginning to stick more and more, despite the skillet being non-stick. It became a race against time. I rapidly scooped through the mix bowl trying my darndest to fry each falafel thoroughly but swiftly. Each patty adding more burnt falafel debris to the surface of the skillet. I tried desperately to scrape off what I could in between frying with a rubber spatula. As Odin would have it, the rubber of the spatula began to melt and become part of the skillet. Each scrape I made resulted in black gunk taking the place of burnt falafel. By the time all the mix was cooked in patties birthed from disappointment, my skillet was almost completely black and dark brown, even the bottom of it had burned somehow. I stared, defeated at the ruins of my one and only means of cooking. 
Refusing to let this battle between me and falafels kill my pan for good, I soaked it in a shit ton of soap and hot water. Two days I soaked it to no avail. I scrubbed with the dinky sponge I had and even needed to replace it with another from the same package. The grime just laughed at me as I whined to myself about my stupid decision to try and be healthy, scrubbing until my hands cramped. Three days had passed since that fateful evening when I resorted to calling my mother. The advice she gave involved a heavy duty sponge and elbow grease.
Here’s a thing about me. I have limited common knowledge of things and an abundance of obscure nonsense roaming around my brain. As such, I had never heard of the term “elbow grease”. I just assumed that was a stupid name for a cleaning product. Not wanting to go into London Drugs and having no idea what the packaging of what I wanted looked like, I searched it up. The first result was a bright fluorescent green bottle called Elbow Grease listed on amazon. I decided to be optimistic and hope that it would also live in a regular drug store. Strolling down the cleaning aisle I found no such thing. After scouring the shelves about four times I got my bravery on and asked for help. The lady I confided in stared at me for a moment and then said, laughing “you won’t find that anywhere in the world, that only comes from your body”. She went on her merry way after that, leaving me staring in embarrassment and utter confusion. I knew I wasn’t crazy. I saw the product online. I knew it existed. Maybe she just hadn’t heard of it. Maybe it was as unheard of as I thought when my mother mentioned it. To make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating something on the computer, I called my mother again and grumbled to her about how I was laughed at for asking about elbow grease even though I saw it online. It was then she told me that was just an expression. I grumbled some more saying things like “you know I’m super gullible and things go over my head” and “you’ve never said that before so how would I know?” and probably something around “you humiliated me and made me look like an idiot”. 
My dignity dwindled as I went home with my head down, heavy duty sponge, and no elbow grease. I returned to my skillet and, as a hail mary, scrubbed it like no tomorrow with my new sponge. Gradually the white shone through more and more. Ignoring the slight tinge of brown around the walls, my skillet was scrubbed clean, and as it turned out, the non-stick layer was also scrubbed out of existence. 
I gave that skillet a bit of a vacation from being used, it needed the rest. Unfortunately, after using it a couple more times, I found that things stuck to it no matter what I added to make it slippery like butter or oil. It was then that I decided to purchase a new one. 
I found two. 
One around the same size that was a nice olive green and another that was larger and more wok shaped in a darker green. Both donned wood handles to match the casualty I had in the under-oven-drawer at home. 
I never gave up my original skillet. Though I mainly rotate betwixt the other two, I still make scrambled eggs on the sad one because I can live with eating the flaky egg bits that I have to scrape off the bottom. I bought a set of bamboo spatula and spoon situations as well to avoid burning anymore rubber onto any skillet henceforth from the tragedy. I haven't made falafels since then and I cook now with more fear than ever. 
That incident changed me as a person. It gave me newfound trauma and added to my hatred of cooking for myself. I grew bitter and remorseful about taking care of my body nutritionally. As time went on, I regained some confidence in the kitchen, but that wariness of skillet murder still lingers in the back of my mind to this day.

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