My neighbor (the one on the up-the-street side) gave me a card the other evening to thank me for being a good neighbor.

Now this might come as a surprise to some folks, but I can be a good neighbor, or at least act the part, on occasion.

But what surprised me even more than the card was what was inside it.

An Amazon gift certificate.

I didn’t think I had been that good a neighbor.

At least I didn’t think I had really done anything to warrant an actual gift.

When she gave me the card she said she was leaving the next day to spend Christmas with her folks, so I figured that gave me enough time to stick my head in the oven. Well, not literally, of course.

I’d bake a batch of brownies and give her some to take along. It might not be the same as a gift certificate, but well, you know… 

So first thing the following morning I fired up the oven and dug out the recipe and gathered all the ingredients and cursed my lack of counter space. All the things that I usually do to ensure a successful, or semi-successful baking experience.

I toasted the pecans, and while they were cooling I made an aluminum sling in the baking pan. Then I chopped the pecans and started measuring the cake flour. Somewhere along the line I realized I had forgotten to get out the sugar canister, so I corrected that, and that’s when I realized there wasn’t enough sugar for two and a quarter cups in the sugar canister!

But for some reason, even though I didn’t think I needed any sugar, the day before I had bought a new container of sugar at the Acme, so I was fine. And I breathed a sigh of relief. Something always goes wrong when I bake, so I was happy to get that out of the way. Now I could proceed with confidence.

I melted the semi-sweet chocolate and butter and gradually added the sugar, eggs, and other ingredients, and everything was coming together nicely. I poured the batter into the pan with the sling (the sling makes it easy to lift out the finished brownies) and popped it into the oven.

The recipe called for baking from 30 to 35 minutes, so I set the oven timer for 30 minutes, then I told my Watch to set a timer for 29 minutes because I’d probably be upstairs and wouldn’t hear the oven timer.

When my Watch timer went off, I thought I heard a noise downstairs. It sounded like the oven timer had already gone off and was repeatedly reminding me of the fact. So I looked at my Watch again. I had actually set my Watch timer for 39 minutes rather than 29. I was probably thinking 29 and 30 at the same time and it came out 39.

I rushed down and pulled the brownies out of the oven. 

The good news is they weren’t burnt.

The not so good news is they were pretty well dried out. OK for me to consume, but no way am I giving them out to anyone else.