When I was about 17 or 18 years old, Dad and Mom went away on holiday. I had the house to myself and, in-between this and that happening, Matt turned up. He walked around the house for about 20 minutes filling up the air with happy chit-chat. I was chatting back, and in the middle of all this polite, friendly banter, it dawned on me that both of us were slowly coming towards two realisations. The first, that I had invited Matt for dinner and basically forgotten to cook it. The second, that Matt definitely wasn't getting any dinner that I'd offered to cook. He continued to walk around the place a bit more, probably getting more hungry, with me getting more sheepish and embarrassed, looking around my parents' kitchen utensils wondering what on earth they were all meant for. Eventually, probably because he was hollowing out with hunger, Matt went for the door saying "next time you invite someone for dinner 'elen you might wanna cook it." He rang me later on that night to say everything was okay now because he'd had some food, and found it really rather funny anyway. He knew I'd been embarrassed about it, and probably knew I'd put up a huge front trying to pretend I was't. Which was true. It's both a painful and funny memory for me, now. What I'd give to be able to cook dinner for him today.