Chili’s fajitas aren’t that great or anything, I just always picture them when I make fajitas. I worked at On the Border when I was in college and you know how they make those things sizzle? They just squirt a bunch of oil onto the hot skillet right before they bring them out to the table. Spoiler alert.

All right, let’s just get right to it.

Here’s the materials:

Peppers, chicken thighs (I’m so fucking done with dry-ass white meat — can we start a revolution please?), onion, tortillas (wheat, for the suffering; white on special occasions), jalapeno, bagged rice and canned beans (which didn’t make it in the shot) and salami. Have yourself some snack salami.

That’s way too much meat, btw. I can’t remember why I bought all of that. I wasn’t thinking of making this pain-in-the-ass thing twice, but now I guess I have to.

OK, so let’s start with cooking the meat. First, wash your hands because that salami grease gets on the tongs, and you hate that.

So what you want to do here is crowd as much into the pan as you can. Because if you don’t, you’ll have to cook it in two batches and you’re too hungry for that.

Also, shake on some of that powdered fajitas seasoning you bought a few months ago accidentally when you’d intended to buy TACO seasoning, idiot. Remember that time in 6th grade when you got a D in math because you were reading “Flowers in the Attic” in class and your mom called you “Jan” for a summer, short for “janitor,” because only janitors get Ds in math? If you’d been paying attention you would’ve bought taco seasoning like you were supposed to.

If you’ve been cooking it at high heat and it’s getting smoky and you know David’s going to start complaining about the smoke and you can see that this shit is still wicked pink in the middle, try putting it in the oven and Googling “how to cook chicken thighs.” This is the beginning of the revolution and you’re still getting to know what makes the revolution tick.

It’ll be fine in there. Move on to chopping.

Clean the peppers and take all the stickers off and get the seeds out. Then slice them like they do at Chili’s.

The chicken’s probably still cooking. Go ahead and check Facebook and Google “how long to cook chicken thighs.” It’ll say 20 minutes and you’re pretty sure it’s already been like seven, so go find David and tell him look, you’re taking care of the smoke problem.

Good news! You haven’t even had a drink yet. It’s like 7! This proves you’re not an alcoholic because you forgot to make a drink.

Make a drink.

Look for the thermometer. I know I packed it I just can’t remember where. I don’t want to do the cut-the-middle-of-the-chicken test to see if it’s cooked because I never really know what shade of pink I’m looking for. People like to act like chicken is either WHITE or PINK but it’s fucking so much more complicated than that.

The good news is I found it, I tested the chicken, it was cooked enough (165 degrees, if Google is to be believed) and I pulled it out of the oven.

I’m going to share an old trick with you that I just came up with: Instead of transferring the chicken to a plate or the veggies to a bowl, just dump the veggies right on the chicken and dig the chicken out and put it on the cutting board. Boom, you just saved yourself a dish.

Genius.

OK, almost there. Cook the peppers and shit till they get soft and heat up the tortillas. Also, finish your drink because you just remembered you have stuff to make margaritas and you want one of those even though it’s Sunday and you’re hoping to be productive tomorrow but you figure if you go to bed by like 11 you’ll be fine.

Microwave your rice material.

You’re pretty much done, man! Grab your bagged cheese — the only kind you like — and put too much of it on a tort, along with some rice and chicken and peppers, and forget the beans because literally you forgot to make them.

Voila.

If any of you can tell me why my cast iron pan is making a kind of chemical smell, please let me know. Unless the answer is that I’m using cast iron on a glasstop stove and I shouldn’t be.