Sunday Shorts: What's Cooking?

We open with the "legend" of Susan Chopman, a former lunch lady of Mill Road middle school. In 1947, she began making lunch for the pupils, and every day, she would go off into the forest with a knife, and come back with a sack full of meat. Basically, all of Ms. Chopman's cooking sucked (reader beware, you're in for a scare), especially her Chinese cooking. Due to this, everybody nicknamed her 'Chop Suey,' because school children are usually that creative with names. That's actually sarcasm, which should give you an idea of my standards. Her cooking began to get worse and worse, with students claiming to find human  fingers in the food. Man, Jamie Oliver's going to have a field day. Eventually, one day, she went mad because of course she did, and she was slashing her cleaver everywhere. I hope the safety inspector wasn't visiting that day. Many years later, she died in a packing plant (oh, I guess the inspector was visiting), when she fell on her cleaver after slipping on a patch of blood. What packing company is this, Freddy Krueger Inc?

Many years later, Mill Road middle school opens once more. 2 kids, Diane and Robert, are starting summer school there. They hear the legend of 'Chop Suey,' and because reasons, they decide to try and summon her. This is performed by standing on one's toes, clicking one's heels together, and saying "There's no place like home" "Chop Suey Chop Suey Chop Suey." How original. So, Diane tries it out, and all the faucets immediately turned on. Horrific. Diane still takes it as a sign. Well, in fairness, what logical explanation do you have for it? At lunch, Diane's lunch bag has been cut to shreds, because ghosts usually cause mild inconveniences such as this, and Robert's PB + J has been replaced by raw liver. The ol' switcharoo.

The next day, the cafeteria opens and hot food is being distributed, presumably attracting the attention of Jamie Oliver. As Diane and Robert leave the cafeteria, they notice a sign which reads "Tomorrow's Lunch: Meat Surprise-- Aunt Sue's Special Recipe!"How descriptive.

Later, as Diane and Robert are walking home, Diane realises that she somehow left her maths book in the cafeteria, because people normally take their school books into the lunch hall. This is especially bad because she has a maths test tomorrow. I'd be skeptical about there being a test on the 3rd day of school, but then again you lot haven't been in my music class. Diane just figures that she'll just fail, because, you know, the ghost, but Robert says that Aunt Sue probably isn't actually Chop Suey, so off they go. In the cafeteria, they find Diane's maths book, and also Aunt Sue, who's waving a cleaver and floating. She is, of course, Chop Suey, and tells the 2 kids that they're the meat surprise. Dammit, I was hoping for lamb. Diane suddenly remembers a movie she saw in which someone said the name of an evil spirit backwards and said evil spirit was defeated. I think it was called, "Screw it, there's like 1 and a half pages of the story left, let's just wrap it up." So, they say "Suey Chop" 3 times quickly, and Chop Suey vanishes. So, who's running the canteen now?

Back home, Diane's mum has ordered Chinese food. She complains that Dad always gets the same thing: Chop Suey. Can't they just get a bunch of different things like normal people? She then yells "Chop Suey Chop Suey Chop Suey," because I guess that's the only twist ending that they could've come up with.

What's Cooking is a bit of a mixed bag. The legend of Susan Chopman holds a lot more weight and suspense than most of the other stuff that this series has produced, and is genuinely creepy. However, everything afterwards is just dull and contrived, especially the ending. I guess it's worth it for the legend of Susan Chopman, but aside from that, well... OK, I have no idea how to end this. Fitting, really.