Rogan Josh

Denise Krebs
Day 5

My husband brought home two jars of sauce, a gift from a friend who thought we’d like them. They look like small jars of spaghetti sauce, only these are Indian-style masalas. One was called Rogan Josh.

I said, excitedly, “Didn’t he sing ‘You Raise Me Up‘?”

“No, that’s Josh Groban.”

“Well, I’m sure I know a Josh Rogan. Or maybe it’s Seth Rogen I’m thinking of.”

So I went online to look. Sure enough, Josh Rogin is a Global Opinions columnist for The Washington Post, and also kind of named after an Indian masala.

The jars went into our pantry. Then the other night when I was trying to finish dinner I went into the pantry to look for a can of mushrooms for our pizza. Sadly, when I went behind the jar to grab a can, (which ended up being bean sprouts instead of mushrooms), I knocked that Rogan Josh jar of sauce onto the floor. Smashed the bottom right off.

Oh, my, what a mess! Broken glass is one thing to clean up. Thick red sauce is another. Together, they are a disaster! How do you even go about cleaning up that mess?

I picked up the biggest piece of jar left with some sauce inside. I poured it in the toilet, while tracking the sauce down the hall. Then I swept up what was left and got the broom all covered with red sauce. I took the broom to the shower, tracking more sticky sauce down the hall and realized I quite possibly left glass chunks in the shower as well. Then I got the mop and a bucket of water. I pushed the small broken glass around the tiles a bit, but picked them up with my rubber flip flops when I stepped on them.

I got the vacuum cleaner out next and tried vacuuming up the wet glass particles. But who knows if I got them all. When my husband got home, I warned him not to go barefooted for a while.

In the meantime, while I cleaned, I noticed the Rogan Josh smelled really good, and I wondered if I would ever buy another jar of that sauce to try it.

I never found mushrooms, and I did not put those beansprouts on my pizza either.

8 thoughts on “Rogan Josh”

  1. Cleaning up a sticky mess is no fun. It was fun to follow your thought and actions throughout this piece. This is a well written everyday moment – an excellent example of slice of life.

    1. Thank you for the encouraging words, Terje. Being more observant and describing my slices of life in real time is one of my goals for this month. So that means a lot.

  2. Denise, this piece speaks to everyone who has ever broken a glass jar. I love it all, but this part has me thinking about students who don’t belong together In the same classroom:
    Oh, my, what a mess! Broken glass is one thing to clean up. Thick red sauce is another. Together, they are a disaster!

    Jars and sauce and broken glass. Seems like 2020.

    1. Kim, what a great observation. Together, they are a disaster! We’ve had one of those combinations occasionally, haven’t we?

  3. Oh, this made me laugh! The clean up process read like a children’s story, sort of “If you give a mouse a cookie” meets kitchen disaster, where one move leads to an endless series of incomplete steps…I can SO relate! Love the word play with the sauce and the singer, comedian, and journalist! Fun with words is our theme today!

  4. I enjoyed the word sauce humor in recalling names and felt you when you had that mess to clean up. I dropped a pan of lasagna a few months ago. It was in a metal pan. After it cooled, I called in the clean-up crew, my dogs. Can’t do that w/ broken glass. You might need a new mop and broom.

    1. Thanks, Glenda. A whole lasagna! I would be heartbroken if that happened, for I love lasagna so much and that’s a lot of work! Yes, I look forward to having a clean-up crew pets again when we move back to California. They are a handy lot for cleaning up non-glassy messes.

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