Living in a Pressure Cooker

I'm about to use a pressure cooker for the first time, and I'm not gonna lie.

I'm afraid.

Our mother told us terrible stories about people who'd had pressure cookers blow up in their very faces, a nightmare of a cleanup.

Ten years ago, I bought a pressure cooker. It sat in our garage for the longest time. I read the instructions, yet still felt incompetent to give it a go, with the violent images Mother placed in my head dancing center stage. I don't even know what happened to that cooker, it got lost in a move, I suppose.

Sitting in my office in a cheerful yellow box is my brand new pressure cooker, purchased just last week. Do they have to make the box a cheerful color for fraidy cats like me, who view the cookers as a possible eminent demise? I wonder, since they do the same thing with fast food logos.

Although...I know plenty of people who've canned and lived to tell. Those with pressure cookers have spaghetti sauce, chicken noodle soup, taco-seasoned meat, and last summer's salmon canned neatly on shelves in their pantries. And they're all still alive to enjoy it, too.

Admittedly, Mother wasn't always right about various things.
As adults, my siblings and I can now laugh about a few of the MomMyths that have proven false:

You actually can kiss someone without giving birth nine months later.

You can preserve salsa and jam without it killing off your entire family.

Not everyone at the grocery store is after your purse.

Not all people who are out after midnight are of the devil.
Some of them are nice.

If there is any black ice on the roads, you might not die.

That the phrase 'coffee tastes terrible' isn't altogether true.

Taking a shower during a lightning storm is sometimes done, and without certain electrocution.


I think I'll give the pressure cooker thing a shot.

If you don't hear from me within forty-eight hours, you and I will both finally know that Mother was right. For a change.


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