My husband has been working late nights recently. I miss him, and I don’t like going to bed when he’s not home. It’s been difficult that way.
But in practical terms, the biggest consequence for me is that dinner, which my husband usually makes, has to either be made by me or “scrounged” by me and the kids independently. I could make the kids scrounge every night, but that would be mean, so I try to provide some form of sustenance most nights.
The other night I needed some ingredients from the store, and I didn’t really feel like cooking, so I made myself a deal: I would go to the store and get the ingredients needed for a few nights’ meals, but then I would hit McDonald’s for that evening’s dinner. Livia accompanied me. When we got home, she helped me carry everything inside. En route to the front door, she said, “I hope the bags to don’t rip.”
RIP!
One of Livia’s bags ripped open and everything in it tumbled to the ground. I turned back to look, expecting to see the items we’d bought at the store, like apples and such. But no. It was the McDonald’s food all lying in the snow on the front walk. Our dinner was ruined!
But hold on a sec. The burgers were still wrapped, and once the snow was brushed off, they seemed fine. One box of McNuggets fell top-down but unopened, so I picked it up carefully and scraped off the snow. The other fell bottom down, but the top had popped open and some nuggets had escaped. I salvaged the ones still in the box and threw away the ones that had hit the snow.
As for the fries, well, we got really lucky. We’d gone through the drive-through, and as always, I’d kept in mind the immortal words of the Joe Pesci’s character from Lethal Weapon 2, who famously said, “They fuck you at the drive-through!” (truer words have never been spoken). Consequently, before leaving the McDonald’s parking lot, I’d asked Livia to make sure everything was in the bag. Good thing I did, because they hadn’t given us our fries. I parked the car, went inside the store, asked for the fries, and I was given them. So those fries were in their own little bag. Had they not been, I bet we would have lost all those tasty fried morsels to the snow. What had seemed like a nuisance turned out to be a blessing.
I interpret this as the Universe’s desire to teach Livia the wisdom of supporting take-out bags from the bottom–a very important lesson–but without entirely spoiling our dinner, for which I am grateful.