A Recipe for Disaster

1) Make sure you and a friend are flying from different cities.
Note: for extra hardship you can make one or both flights international and with connections!

2) Make sure you plan everything out well in advance. That way when it all blows up in your face, it's that much more painful.

3) Check your bags on to your flights.

4) Try to arrange so that the departing planes are late to arrive. This is a very difficult task but can be acclompished!

5) Make sure your friend has her cell phone turned off. That way you can work in that extra bit of anxiety that makes this recipe so coveted. Yummy!

5) Make sure you don't check the weather forecast for your sunny vacation in Barcelona until the last minute. This way when you find out that there are electrical storms and expectations of buckets of rain, it will be as if you have received an electric shock yourself!

6) As your plane arrives, have the Barcelona airport go on strike. This is when anxiety slowly turns to panic. If it's possible (only works for certain situations) try to arrange it that your friend has never been to Europe and has to borrow a phone that MAY work in Europe. This way, you won't really be sure if you will ever be able to reach her.

7) At this point anxiety levels should be raised. Check heart rate, if elevated at least 10% above resting rate, your disaster is cooking perfectly.

Warning: if you are not vigilant in controlling the uncontrollable, persons preparing for disaster have been know to succumb to disaster's bitter tasting sibling recipes: deppression and desolation.

8) To minimize possibility of disaster turning into desolation, have your friend turn on their cell phone and ensure contact is established.

9) After an hour of waiting, have one of your flights be cancelled. Remember, you are coming from different locations with connections from different airports.

10) The non-cancelled party should check on the status of their flight. Try to arrange for the flight to still be intent on boarding in 20 minutes. Look confused and then ask for your luggage to be taken off the plane.

10a) While waiting for authorization to remove bag, call other party and ask that they take a train so that party 1 and party 2 can be in the same locatiuon.

11) After leaving the departures terminal, realize that you can not get back into baggage claim once you have left the terminal.

12) Sneak in and realize, a) airport security is not all that great and b) the claim turnstile that they have told you where your bag will be is non-existant.

13) Search for help and upon receiving your bag leave the terminal for the car rental counter.

14) As you have just returned your car, look sheepish in asking for another. Make sure to specify a navigation system and receive affirmation.

15) Receive keys, walk with luggage to car, approximately 20 minutes and realize that the car does not have said navigation system.

16) Go back to step 14 and repeat.

17) Pick up other party from train station.

At this point your recipe for disaster has been completed and you can enjoy your dish!

Note: As a accompaning dish to the recipe for sisaster is the “improvised road trip”. It's delicious and helps the recipe for disaster go down smooth.