Where oh Where Did My Skillet Go?

Yesterday I decided that I was going to make chili and cornbread for dinner.  

I went to the store and purchased the ingredients I did not have in the pantry and by 2:30 P.M. I was in the kitchen chopping onions and garlic, and browning my hamburger.  At 3:00 P.M. my chili was simmering away and I decided to get everything ready for my "Perfect Cornbread" recipe so that when it was time I could just make and bake.  

I cannot make cornbread without my cast iron skillet.  My perfectly seasoned cast iron skillet given to me by one of Raymond's aunts for my wedding shower back in 1981.  I opened the cabinet where I keep my wonderful skillet ... no skillet.  Since it is such a deep and long cabinet, I got down on all fours, emptied out cabinet, crawled up into the cabinet ... no skillet.  Hmmmm.  

The search was on.  I searched every cabinet in the kitchen.  I was climbing up on chairs and looking in all the upper cabinets, I looked in the pantry, I even emptied out the long cabinet a second time and climbed back into it.  Still no skillet.  I started to feel a little panic setting in.

I sat on the couch and thought about it.  It has probably been 3 years since I made cornbread. Once the oldest moved out I stopped cooking like I used to when all of us were here.  If the skillet was not in the kitchen, then it was hidden from the last time certain relatives visited.  I always hide the skillet during their visit after an incident from years ago when they found my skillet and I had a week in hell as they misused my perfectly seasoned skillet and glass topped stove. 

 

So the question then became where did I hide it that last visit.  I went to the most obvious place.  The closet where I hide my tequila.  I searched and searched. No skillet.  My heart started to beat a little harder as the panic started to really set in over my skillet.

Back to the couch, more thinking.  Oh, yes, I had hidden it under my bed some years.  I rushed into the bedroom.  I looked under the bed.  A table, some picture frames, an autoharp, some of Raymond's things, no skillet.  CRAP!  Now I was really upset.

Back to the couch to calm down and think again.  It must be in with the tequila.  I went back to the closet to do a more do a more thorough search.  No skillet.  I was ready to cry.

I went back to the couch.  I thought about their last visit.  It was sometime in the first six months of 2010.  They were only here a couple of days.  Where could it be?  I remembered that I almost forgot to hide the skillet.  I was pretty sure I put it under the bed, but maybe I put it under the bed on the opposite side of where I would normally hide it.  I picked up a flashlight, went into the bedroom, and moved the bed out to the middle of the room a little and crawled on my belly between the bed and the bookcase.  I turned on the flashlight and there it was, my wonderful perfectly seasoned cast iron skillet.  

I made my cornbread after Loni came home and I enjoyed it very much with some margarine and honey.