A Tale of Woe (as told by my sister)

We have a guest writer today, my esteemed younger sister. Had I been available to help her in her food preparation then likely none of this would have happened. I was, alas, in San Diego for the weekend and did not help, therefore it did happen. Abject humiliation for the author but hilarity for the rest of us. Enjoy!

Scene: A "Slider Showdown" cooking contest and fundraiser for the MS Society.

"Sigh. The showdown. So I was all set to use the Animal Style knock-off, mustard mixed into the ground beef and a bacon/onion jam on top. It was going to be awesome. Then Annie, a work and cooking friend, wanted to get in on the action, and suggested these: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/16-minute-meal-3-mini-meatball-sandwiches/
I was just happy to have help since I'd already regretted saying yes, so we planned on those. I asked the head dude if meatball sliders were okay, and he said Diversity is good." Okay! Then layoffs happened, and Annie asked if she could back out, and I said of course. But I wasn't excited about making a hundred meatballs alone, so her officemate suggested this: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/sloppy-bombay-joes-recipe/index.html
I could just make a huge pot and be done with it. Sure! It would be easy and different, and if there was a selection of twenty different sliders, then people would appreciate something unique.

Okay, can you see where this went terribly wrong? Because I didn't.
A) It is NOT that easy to make a giant pot of sloppy Joe. For 100+ servings, it ended up being FOUR GALLONS!! The mess... unbelievable. Why did I think that would be easier than mixing mustard into beef and spooning into lumps? Because I'm an idiot.
B) There were not twentyish other slider chefs. There were THREE. So instead of being a refreshing change of pace, I was the "wow, you clearly didn't get it, did you?" Slider, slider, slider, slop in a hot dog bun. I was SO embarrassed!! Here are some choice comments I got:

Mom: Do you want a burger or do you want... this?
Kid: BAH!
Mom: Okay, let's get you a burger.


Dude 1: So... is this one of the entries?


Dude2: How's your chili coming along?
Me: Fine. [It's not chili!!!]


Dude 3: Ooh, you have chili dogs.
Me: [weeps on the inside]


Dude 4: What is this?
Me: Sloppy Sliders.
Dude 4: [skeptically] Boy, you went really different, didn't you?
Me: [I will eat your goddamn face right off your skull.]


And you know what burns me up? If I had stuck to my original animal style recipe, I would have totally won. Hands down. God damn it. Now all I have is a lesson learned and 3.95 gallons of Sloppy Joe left." :(