PERFECT MASHED POTATOES FOR DISAPPOINTED PARENTS

You will need:

 

Potatoes
Cream
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Peel potatoes and cut into quarters. Rinse potatoes as you drain away any previously held hopes for the success of your child. Throw peels in garbage along with all college applications. You won’t be needing those, as your child has been thrown out of every school he ever attended, beginning with Little Rainbows Nursery School straight through to the work-study High School Equivalency Program.

 

Put potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Potatoes will sink to the bottom of the pot much like your son, who, when you took him to swimming lessons, and no matter how hard they tried to teach him, sank to the bottom every time. Recall with vivid embarrassment how the instructor explained that your son had a complete lack of athletic ability, as well as an inability to close his mouth, even underwater.

 

Boil until potatoes are tender. Drain and rinse, the way you rinsed your hands of all responsibility when he was caught taking puppies from the local animal shelter and setting them on fire.

 

Return potatoes to pot and add cream and butter. Take out years of pent-up desire to throttle your son on the potatoes and mash them to a smooth consistency. Pour gin. Drink. Realize son has replaced gin with water.

 

Season with salt and pepper. Enjoy while accustoming yourself to idea that while most children leave home after twenty years, yours isn’t going anywhere. Ever. Consider taking up smoking to get it over with quicker.