Grilled cheese

The other day I made grilled cheese sandwiches for my wife and myself. I make a pretty darn good grilled cheese sandwich if I do say so myself – and I don’t have to because other people say so as well.

It reminded me of rehab.

No, I am not that weird – well, maybe I am, but anyway – and this isn’t really one of those posts.

The point of acute in-patient physical rehabilitation is to literally get you back on your feet – assuming that is possible – and to make sure that when they send you home you can take basic care of yourself.

After days of physical therapy to help me move better and manage stairs and other things to make sure I would be OK in a home environment my final exam was to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

It makes more sense than it may seem. It tests how stable you are on your feet (l was still on crutches so this tested how well I did what they call furniture assisted walking), how well you navigate the kitchen and find what you need, how well you can complete successive tasks, not forget to do something – did you put the cheese in the bread and so forth, not set fire to the place, turn off the stove and not hurt yourself while you’re doing all of that.

It’s a pretty clever method. There’s a lot you can tell about a person by sticking them in a kitchen and telling them to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

I did pretty good and I didn’t have to say so myself – I passed, and I had lunch, too.