It was a peaceful Sunday afternoon, and I, a brave but mildly overconfident home cook, decided it was time to make spaghetti from scratch. Not just any spaghetti—homemade noodles, homemade sauce, the whole romantic, cinematic experience. The kind of meal that says, “Yes, I have my life together,” even though I currently had three mismatched socks on the floor and a spoon stuck to the counter from an unrelated peanut butter incident.

Anyway, I began with enthusiasm and three YouTube tabs open. The dough came together surprisingly well. I flourished it like a pizza chef in a rom-com, except instead of tossing it, I kind of just dropped it and muttered, “Still good.”

Rolling it out was trickier. I don’t own a pasta roller, so I used the next best thing: a wine bottle. Pro tip: if you use a wine bottle as a rolling pin, don’t drink from it while you’re rolling. I ended up with pasta that was, dimensionally, somewhere between “ribbon” and “bath towel.”

Still, progress was made. I hung the noodles over various kitchen surfaces like they were tiny laundry lines. Some were on the back of a chair. Some were on a lamp. One particularly bold noodle ended up on my cat, who stared at me like, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Next, the sauce
 

This is where things took a turn.

I chopped onions. I chopped garlic. I cried—mostly from the onions, though also a little from the garlic falling directly into my slipper. I sautéed everything with olive oil and a deep sense of pride.
 

But then… I got distracted.

Specifically, I sat down to “rest my eyes for one minute” while the sauce simmered and woke up to the smoke alarm yelling at me like it was my Italian grandmother disappointed in my life choices.

I ran to the stove in a panic. The sauce was no longer a sauce—it was a smoking, sticky, tomato-based form of punishment. I opened all the windows. I waved a towel at the alarm like I was trying to swat invisible regret. My cat, still adorned with pasta, fled the scene like a war survivor.
 

By the time the smoke cleared, I had:

1. One pot of charred sauce

2. Pasta that had dried into something resembling shoe strings

3. An offended cat

4. A neighbor knocking on my door asking if I was okay or just learning to cook again
 

In the end, I ordered pizza. But I plated it on my nice dishware and threw a basil leaf on top to maintain the illusion of effort. When life gives you smoke, order pepperoni and pretend you meant to all along.