.:: Chef Hatchet's Kitchen - YOU BETTER GET OUT MAGGOT! 8(

[Chef Hatchet]

The kitchen was rather shabby for such a show that promised to be a hit. Maybe that's why the food sometimes tasted like sawdust -- Ratchet could see that the chef used a big wooden table in the middle of the room as a giant cutting board and knife-holder. The appliances were cheap, covered with protective recycled aluminum displaying all the dents and scratches they received throughout their lifetime.

To Ratchet's experienced eye, these appliances were past-warranty and should have been put out of their misery a long time ago.

The only appliance that looked new was the refrigerator. It was large, even for Chef -- there weren't any dents or pawprints on it, nor any magnets holding up any camper's report cards. Amazingly, there wasn't even a picture of Chris on it! Then again, she could see herself in it...

It wasn't the main attraction of the kitchen, however. Taking up an entire corner was a shiny, purple and new vending machine. It looked snug against the wall, and rather heavy. Inside were the usual snacks kept in brightly covered packages. Some were McLean endorsed, and others... well, you just can't say no to Swedish Fish and Animal Audio Crackers, can you? Chef apparently can't. There were also a lot of empty spaces, and there wasn't a coin slot. Instead, there was a slot shaped like a rounded square... weird.
It also has a sign on it: "DON'T BE AN IDIOT, FOO'."



A quick exploration and break-in of the drawers gave Ratchet what she needed and what she didn't: a can-opener, a broom, a small step-ladder that had "FOR McLEAN USE ONLY" engraved and embossed in several places on it, a broom, mop, rubber gloves, a rubber ducky, blank socks to match Bella and Edward, lots of cans of beans, a crowbar with some Chris-stickers on it, baking soda, a make-your-own mini volcano kit, shoe polish, floor wax, anti-mold spray, a first-aid kit that looked recently used (Did Chef have an accident? Maybe.), some vinegar, and... hullo, what's this? It seems that Chef still kept the blueprints, operating manuals, and some worn tools for the appliances he still kept.  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Where to start, where to start, where to start? Such a question.

Oh, who was she kidding, it wasn't a question at all! Tools! While there were PLENTY of things in here worth taking, these caught her attention first. These were practically antiques, but Ratchet could see hex wrenches of undiscovered size, a few shabby hammers, a screwdriver you could find at a dollar store and sweet merciful Henry F. Phillips! A crowbar! She hadn't been able to bring one, due to the considerable heft and size of the tool, but they were oh-so-useful! This poor thing was covered in stickers of the shiny-haired host... oh well, that was what vinegar and hot water were for. This was coming home with her. She set it to the side and, with a longing glance to go out and use it, she donned the gloves. Time to get busy. That anti-mold spray and vinegar would be put to their first test. She liberally sprayed the entire room with the cloying stuff, splashing vinegar on the worst bits. Was it her imagination, or could she hear the mold shrieking in terror as it died? She hoped it was screaming. Good. Mold was horrible for any building. What was next, termites? She mopped the floor as quickly as she could, for it was next on her list to fix. Most of the mold came up with the mopping, and what was left, she chipped at with the ancient screwdriver until it did. A bit of the varnish on the wood floor came along, too, but that wasn't a problem. She'd wax it so well, nobody'd be able to tell.

The planks was next. She wasn't gonna stop until they shined... and were safe to walk on with bare paws. Using the battered old hammer, she tapped every loose nail back into place, flattening every floorboard. Then, using one of the thin rasps she'd brought with her, she rounded off the more troublesome corners. However, the floor still squeaked when she walked. This wasn't cool. Not cool at all. However, the floor wax had more uses than one, and it was easy to identify which nails were taking the most painful pressure. Using the peen end of the hammer, she clawed them up, dipped them in the wax, and then hammered them back in. There were a lot of nails, and the task was boring, but Ratchet lived in a hundred-year-old farmhouse at home and those floors never so much as creaked. Not on her watch. When she was satisfied with the way the boards laid at last, she began to carefully wax and buff the floor, taking extra care to get the places where the thin varnish was gone, pulled up by the monstrous mold. It took her only about twenty minutes to work the floor; when Ratchet was in the groove, she was in the groove. She only stopped when she could see herself in the floor as well as in the fridge. Now... what next, the stoves or the fryer? They all looked awful... Hmm. Stoves first. Putting the remains of the floor wax back where she found it, Ratchet opened the stoves to see...  

[Chef Hatchet]

Good thing Chef wasn't here. Ratchet was destroying a week's worth of high-quality intern food! Sigh. Guess he'll just have to suck up the losses and feed them left over camper food... if there was any.

Inside the stoves, a baked and crisp old witch looked back at Ratchet! Well, okay, not really. The oven was gas-powered, and the inside looked as if the "self-cleaning" part of it died in the attempt. Burnt gunk oozed and slithered around on the bottom, and the scent of burnt fur lingered.

The other stove was locked tight, and Ratchet could see a haunch of beef slowly cooking inside it. From the looks of it, it was tonight's dinner.  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Hmm. What a loss. If the locked stove was anywhere as nasty as this stove, she'd be able to fix it, too. At least, she thought she could. She knew what the problem was- the self-cleaner was off. And, since this wasn't an electric stove, it had to be a mechanical device somewhere... Frowning, she took out the blueprints to the stove, following the heat trail from the gas burners all the way down to the exhaust... Peering into the stove again, she searched for a small box on the bottom of the oven. A gas stove's self-cleaning mechanism was just a simple temperature cycler that put the stove up to insanely high heats, and, from the look of it, this thermostat had blown itself. That... well, honestly, that wasn't a problem. All she had to do was pop it open and reset the switch inside, unless he'd smashed it somehow. And she doubted that. Kneeling down, she tilted her head so that she could see the thermostat better. She popped it open with the screwdriver, and, using one of the small hex wrenches, she gently nudged the wires of the sooty switch back into place. There was a slight clicking noise, and Ratchet knew she'd fixed it. However, even the best oven couldn't clean this mess, so, ignoring the disturbing scent of burnt fur, she grabbed the broom and began jabbing away at the mess. Loosening the gunk, she tossed the broom up on the counter and turned on the sink, running water over it to help clean off the oven's dirt. She also grabbed a slightly green sponge that was in there, probably from that morning's dishes; using it and a liberal amount of dish soap, she scrubbed out the oven. Ugh. The sponge was disgusting, and really not worth salvaging. Ratchet threw it in the trash can; the camp could easily afford another sponge. The stove wasn't sparkling... but it was cleaner. And, if she was right, the self-cleaning bit would click in once she shut the door and turned it on. She didn't have much experience with cooking anything on a stove, but she knew how to turn one on. Turning the dial to the highest, cleaning setting, she peered into the oven. Was it... yes! The little orange light was ON! As the oven heated, it smoked a little, but nothing serious. That just meant that the cycle was working. She examined herself in the fridge. She'd gotten grease and flecks of burnt... something all over her pants. She'd have to wash them somehow... Which reminded her. That other project that had been floating around in the back of her head. She'd seen cans of beans and she'd seen a can opener. The cans would be fine, but she wasn't gonna waste the beans unless she could find a bowl to put them in. But that could wait. It was now time for the sink! While the faucet could do with a thorough disassembly and reassembly, the pipes needed fixing, too. From all the mildew she could smell, she knew that they leaked, and were probably held together with duct tape and bolts. Ugh. Plumbing was a specialty of Ratchet's. Maybe, if she got voted off, she could convince them to hire her as a contractor and bring her back to put in improved plumbing in the outhouses. Lord knew they needed it. Bracing herself, she opened the cabinet under the sink...  

[Chef Hatchet]

When the sink was turned on, the water spat out something that was orange and... well, rather nasty. After a few moments, the water turned what looked to be clear in the room's lighting.

The pipes under the sink, now... If the pipes on a car could mate with the sewage system, the result would be this. It was a weird assortment of pipes, but it was clear that the pipes not connecting to the waterline were jammed in there to support the ones that were. Water was leaking in a steady drip drip, and the bucket placed there to catch the water was overflowing.

Added to that, there wasn't a garbage disposal. But hey, who needed one of those when you had interns?  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Ratchet stared, jaw agape. What. The. Hell. Was. This. ?. Seriously. She'd never seen anything this bad. And she'd sat through Catwoman, Spice World, and Gigli.

At least she could find the line that connected it to the watermain. Sighing, she turned the little wheel as far to the right as she could, leaving the faucet on until there wasn't any water left in the pipes. This was going to be disgusting... with a monkey wrench, she loosened the bolts on all the main pipes. With no garabage disposal, this system shouldn't be nearly this complicated. She knew that only one thing led to pipes this bad. Incompetent plumbers. These were criminals in Ratchet's book. Now. Let's see. She had enough filthy, rusty pipes to easily make a new line straight to the main pipe, complete with a decent grease trap. And... well... there would be plenty of pipes left over for support... and for her own use back at the cabin. And, when she was done, they wouldn't need this bucket any more, either! She'd leave it here, though, for the mop. This was a much better bucket than the other one. Leaky pipes were something Ratchet just didn't do. Using some half-gone steel wool and the broom handle, the speckled Audio carefully got as much of the rust as she could out of the pipes. Their threads were nearly stripped, so she used the shoe polish as a lacquer to guide the connecting bolts and cuffs back onto them, then, ever so gently, used her monkey wrench to tighten them to machine perfection. Honestly, how had this happened? With no garbage disposal to worry about, there didn't need to be any direct-to-sewer (or, more likely in this case, cesspit) pipes for the food, and even the largest of industrial sinks only needed one at-site grease trap. And... speaking of the grease trap... she found it. Ratchet's eyes bulged at the filth and lard that was in this curved pipe. Oddly enough, this piece of pipe looked more worn than the others on the outside- worn from touch, perhaps. Odd. Did... Er... no. No. NO. That was just too gross to think about. Chef wouldn't reclaim and REUSE the grease his sink caught, would he?

WOULD HE?

Mentally prodding herself not to EVER eat Chef's fried food, Ratchet looked away as she cleaned out the grease trap over the garbage can. Bits of fat crusted with rust plopped down on top of the mold and oven gunk, and she willed herself not to vomit into the can on top of it. Ew, ew, ew, ew. The quicker she could screw that nasty thing back into place the better. Once she had enough pipes, Ratchet reassembled the sink. It... well, it looked like the underside of a sink now. She neatly stacked the smallest pipes underneath it, saving an armload of the slightly larger ones to try and take back to the cabin. They weren't too heavy. Placing the pipes up next to the crowbar, she lifted the bucket and dumped it down the sink, crossing her fingers. The water gurgled, but nothing leaked, nothing exploded, and nothing broke. Victory! Well... almost. The spigot still needed serious attention. Carefully unscrewing the faucet device, she decided that a little more than your average cleaning job was needed here. Shaking the box of baking soda over the faucet array, she worked it into the cracks and crevices with damp paws. Baking soda, as well as being an odor neutralizer, was a good cleaner, too. To clean it, she dumped vinegar over it. It bubbled and fizzed, but it carried a lot of the rusty flakes with it. Holding it over the trash can again, she scrubbed out the inside with the steel wool until the rust was no longer flaking out. Looking into it, she saw that the inside wasn't red anymore. Good. Now for the filter! Popping out the small basket of wires that kept the largest chunks out, she was disgusted by the amount of sediment that had build up. Gross! She decided to leave it out and run water over it once the sink was finished. Re-bolting the spigot back into place, Ratchet crossed her fingers and turned the water main back on, then turned on the faucet. It sputtered... it groaned... and then it ran a little white at first, but then relatively clear! Sure, there were a few rusty spots here and there, but it was actually safe to drink now! She quickly cleaned the filter and pushed it back into place. Done with that! Now... what next? She looked at the fridge, then shook her head. It was too big for her to move alone, and definitely too new to need many repairs. But she could still open it... right? Of course she could! And she could throw out anything moldy and nasty in there! And maybe find a bowl for those beans. And then she would do something about that fryer. Ratchet could only deal with so much gross at one time.  

[Chef Hatchet]

Ratchet couldn't blame Chris or Chef for the pipes. The interns did it. Really.

...

Okay, so maybe the interns fudged here and there, but c'mon, would you want to work with Chef menacingly menacing lettuce for salad at your back? Didn't think so.

As for the lard... well, Ratchet was wise to never think about that.

When she opened the refrigerator... Hot damn! Every corner was filled with fresh food, glistening in the appliance's bright light. The food looked and smelled fresh, and the lack of dirt meant that whoever plucked it from the field washed it, boxed it, and shipped it straight here by truck. It was very tempting to stash away some food for la-- was that some jello shaped like Chris? Good God.

The nearest bowl Ratchet could see housed some extra eggs, since all the egg-slots in the fridge's door were filled with even more eggs.  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Wow. There... was nothing gross in here. Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything was fresh and delicious-looking... Weird. This... must be the kitchen of the worst chef in the absolute world. But! That bowl could fit a lot of beans! Ratchet started to empty the bowl stacking eggs between other eggs, then putting eggs in the produce drawer, then put the last remaining egg up on top of the Chris-jello's head, right between his ears. Heh. Listening intently for approaching pawsteps, she began to open up the cans of beans and scrape them into the bowls. She was careful to leave the lid attached; her plan would be no good if she couldn't cover the cans. Four big cans like this would be plenty. She put the beans into the fridge, then washed the cans in the sink and put them in her backpack. They took up a lot of room, but she'd be able to carry everything else back in her arms. Thinking for a moment, she tossed in the can opener, too. Gears. Useful. After a brief moment of breathing, she looked around at her work. The kitchen looked -and smelled- a lot nice. But. In the corner was DOOM. And by that...

By that she meant the fryer. Ugh. That thing looked like it'd been around when carhops still wore rollerskates. And were called carhops. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room to Satan's Fryer and took a good look at it...  

[Chef Hatchet]

Worst Chef to campers and interns, but what the Chef served the host was another story all together. The bowl in question that Ratchet picked up was left over from another season, when someone was skilled enough at the Arts and Crafts challenge to make something. The initials of the camper could still be seen... on the bottom. The bowl itself was blue and decorated with little pink sheep. Aww.

The fryer itself was amazingly empty of oil. The baskets to deep-fry food had some burnt-on gunk, as did the bottom of it... or what Ratchet could presume to be the bottom of it. The entire bottom was covered with black and reddish-brown stuff, and it took the hesitant poking of one of the baskets to make sure it was the actual BOTTOM of the fryer and not some deep abyss.  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Something had to be wrong with it. Other than the filth, that was.

She pulled a piece of the aluminum siding off the top of the fryer. It'd do as a makeshift shovel to muck out the fryer. Removing the baskets and placing them on the floor, she began to shovel out the goop. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Not fun. Not pleasant. So greasy and oily and... shiny... Shuddering, Ratchet wondered if she'd stumbled across the secret ingredient in Chris's hair gel line. Once the nastiness was out of the bottom, she gave the fryer's vat a good rub down with some paper towels and the steel wool. She did the same for the baskets; the secret ingredient in fried chicken should not be rust. After that, she turned her attention back to the bottom of the fryer. Why was it so nasty? She scanned the bottom, looking for a leak, when the drain caught her eye. Fryers didn't have the rubber flaps over their drains that sinks did... so... why was the drain blocked with something black?

Oh. EWW. That was where that gunk was coming from. How long had this drain been blocked? The piping looked just fine, but... How do you lose half a chicken down a fryer?? It had decomposed into a goopy, gelatinous mess that was wedged into the drain so well, it took Ratchet actually using her screwdriver to wedge it out of there. So. So. So. So gross. She'd never been more glad for a pair of gloves. The chicken reeked- while it had been fried many times over, it had also been festering down there. Mercifully, any maggots that might be on the fossilized chicken had been fried with it. Ratchet sprinted over to the trash can and dumped in the chicken, gagging all the way. Thank the heavens for an iron stomach. She scrubbed out the drain with the steel wool to get rid of the black, curdling goo, and, realizing that it was too disgusting to work with any longer, tossed the faithful cleaning pad in the garbage with the ex-chicken. Nasty! The fryer now quite clean, Ratchet replaced the much-nicer baskets and washed off the aluminum siding, laying it on the table. She popped the other side's siding off, too, and, with her nice hammer, hammered out the largest of the dents before replacing the siding. There. Now it at least looked presentable. Unlike that poor, abused table... her last project.  

[Chef Hatchet]

The table wobbled a bit before Ratchet, as if dreading the moment. Once upon a time, it was a rather sturdy table. Then it was bought and brought to Wawanakwa for Chef to use in his kitchen.

It wasn't one of those fancy-pants dining tables with the floral designs and claw-like knobby feet on the bottom. It was a plain and rather large table, decorated with knives stabbed into it in order to keep them in place. There were many nicks, dings, and scratches on the surface of it. There were a couple recipe books here and there, each flipped open to a certain page. One of them seemed to have been hand-made, as it contained lots of little clippings of various yummy-looking and sounding recipes from different books.  

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Oh, if she only knew about cooking! She could have EDITED those books to make recipes that didn't just look good, but actually were good! Sighing, Ratchet began pulling at the knives. They didn't want to move, and she figured that these ought to be left alone, especially since now that she had her tools back, she didn't need to go hacking down the forest with cooking knives. Using the same woodworking rasp she used to sand down the floor, Ratchet gently rounded out the worst of the gashes. It seemed that the entire table was one big gash; there were cuts everywhere. This must be part of the reason the food was so... questionable- if this was where Chef prepared everything, there was no way that there wasn't some serious cross-contamination going on, and not just the juices from the raw meat. Anything and everything could have been on this table. From where she was working, Ratchet kept checking the door. She'd been in the kitchen an awfully long time- where was the chef? She filed more quickly, but really, there wasn't much that could be done for this poor beast. Nothing to do now but sweep it off. It was a big table; it could easily hold one teenaged audio. Hopping up with the broom, she swept all the wood chips and filings to the floor, then, hopping back down, she swept them into the dustpan and deposited them neatly in the trash, which was a smelly, gunky amalgam of... lots of things. Hm. Yuck. Maybe she should toss this outside; there had to be a dumpster out there, right? Well, she'd get that later, and that's how she'd exit, too. No need to haul tail back through the dining hall covered in grease and carrying a bunch of pipes. Looking forlornly at the table, she used the last of the paper towels to give it a good washdown, then tossed the towels in the trash. Tying the bag shut, she hoisted it over one shoulder and headed out the back door. Aha! There were the big cans! Heaving the heavy black bag over the side, she headed back in to the kitchen, which was now quite clean and looking good. Ish. She could hear noises outside in the dining hall, so she quickly pushed the dining chair up against the table and tossed what she wasn't planning on taking back into the drawers. She left out an armful of pipes, along with the can opener, four empty bean cans, the crowbar, and, on second thought, the rubber ducky. While Edward and Bella had been staring down at her with their empty, soulless eyes, she figured she shouldn't risk taking them again. However, there were a lot of campers in her cabin who had a thing for plushies, and she overheard that one of him lost his. Maybe he'd like the ducky instead. The cans fit in her backpack, on top of her tools, and the duck and can opener fit in the side pocket if she wedged them in there well with the duck perched rather precariously on top. The real question was... how many of those pipes could she get back? She figured she could carry five pipes if she only took two with good el-bends on them and get the crowbar back to the cabin if she left through the back door. She debated taking the broom, too, but that would have been too much to grab. Besides, she could make one of those.  

[Chef Hatchet]

Amazingly, after Ratchet's vigorous sanding, the table managed to still stand. So what if some parts of the table weren't as tall as the other? It was still a table. Granted, if Chef was careless to put an egg straight onto it, it would most likely roll off... But hey! It wasn't going to be HIS breakfast. twisted

Ratchet made good time with her pipes, ducky, and Chef's crowbar. The next time Chef went looking for his crowbar to wedge open the second oven door, he most likely wouldn't be too happy to find it missing. Then again, there was something a lot more important than a crowbar at the moment.

Roughly an hour after Ratchet made her escape, Chef opened the back door to the kitchen and stared. The floor! It was shiny, and the appliances looked... new. It couldn't have been Chris' doing -- he was with Chris, and... but... wh...

He closed the door and looked around, growling explicits. Someone was in HIS kitchen and touched HIS stuff! As handy as Ratchet was with opening locked drawers, there were still tell-tale scratches to show that someone was there.

Screaming out what he really felt would overwork the "beep" sounds used to censor words on TV, and the editing boys would have a ton of footage to go through. Following that, the producers would have a long talk with him over what's proper and what isn't proper to say on TV, followed by a slash to his paycheck.

Instead, Chef took his anger out by chopping up tomorrow morning's bagels into iddy-bitty bite-sized pieces. The table regained some of its old scratches, but now it began wobbling under the force of Chef's blows. Ooooh dear. Good job, Ratchet!  

[Chris McLean]

It was evening, sometime after dinner and he was bored. He had been ready for bed, allll ready to get a good night's sleep (a host did need his beauty sleep afterall) but he just...he couldn't.

Goddamn he wanted some jello. What a stupid, random craving. But he -wanted- some and it was just going to bother him. So without even bothering to change back to normal clothes Chris left the production camp and wandered back to the main campgrounds.

A short while later the host padded into the messhall. It was a pretty good thing no campers were there currently, as they'd probably -laugh- at his current state. Huh....random novelty shirt (Without me, it's just aweso), green PJ bottoms with shapes that appeared to be beavers on them..and beaver slippers. ...Really Chris? REALLY? And to top it all off he appeared to have a chiapet on his head. A friggin chiapet. Why? Chris McLean didn't need to explain his habits to you!

Throwing open the kitchen door, Chris wandered in...and stopped, and stared. What the...? This...this wasn't the kitchen! Blinking, Chris stepped back out, took a good loooong look at the messhall, then walked back in. ...Well the messhall looked normal, but -this-? What the hell was going on?!