Over the last 49 years, Michael and I have had to ask
ourselves some very difficult questions.
·
Should we get married? (Obviously, yes.)
·
Should we accept the transfer and relocate the
family? Should we do that again? And again? And again? (Phew, we finally landed
in Houston and stuck!)
·
Can we afford this house? This car? This
vacation? (No, but we mostly bought them anyway.)
·
Are we doing everything we can/should do to
raise happy, healthy kids? (They seem to have turned out okay.)
·
Should we adopt a child in our middle age? (No,
but we did anyway.)
·
Will we survive this crisis? And this one? And
this one? Etc, etc, etc. (We did, but never without collateral damage.)
·
Will our retirement savings last through our old
age? (Hopeful, but remains to be seen.)
I’m not saying we’re special. Everyone faces difficult questions,
often many, in the course of their lives. But of all the questions we’ve faced,
none has been as persistent—or as maddening—as the one that greets us every
evening: what’s for dinner? It is the most
fraught question in our relationship and we have to face it down every day.
In a recent Progressive
Insurance commercial, Mara—the perennially grumpy
insurance agent—terrifies graduates by
reminding them that they can look forward to deciding “…what’s for dinner every
night for the rest of your lives.” Kudos to the copywriter who came up with that
line: they hit the jackpot!
Now, some of you are
thinking to yourselves, why don’t they make a weekly meal plan, then they’d
know what’s for dinner every night. That
has occurred to us periodically and we’ve even occasionally tried it for a few
weeks at a time. But ultimately, that only compounds the problem. Asking “What
are we going to have for dinner for the next seven days?” is more than seven
times more difficult than facing tonight’s meal.
We have tried to find a permanent
solution, with no success. One can tiptoe into it: do you have any thoughts
about dinner? Or: how hungry are you? One can boldly go: what do you
want for dinner? One can sidestep: what do we have for dinner?
Occasionally, one of us makes the sacrifice and offers an
idea. That usually means offering to cook as well and usually results from a
personal craving or burst of energy that may flag before the meal comes to
fruition. Too bad, offer accepted, you’re on the hook.
The impasse that results when neither of us has any idea
what to make or the gumption to make it, usually resolves in a free-for-all.
Then you’re on your own to scrounge through the fridge, pantry, and/or freezer
for sustenance. I mean, there’s usually cheese, eggs, bread, and the odd can of
soup in the house.
It may also lead to a fast food run. If we’re feeling momentarily
flush, it might mean going to a restaurant. The beauty of eating in a
restaurant is that there will likely be left-overs, which assures a future
meal. Unless someone sneaks into the fridge at midnight.
I haven’t mentioned breakfast or lunch. We gave up on
those years ago and they are strictly free-for-all meals at our house unless we
have houseguests. Long ago, when we were responsible for feeding children, I know
that we did this better. The kids did get regular meals and there was pre-planning
because, duh, working parents. You couldn’t wing it without potential disaster,
peanut butter sandwiches and cereal excepted. Back then, dinner was a duty. Now
it’s a negotiation.
So if you’re still wondering what’s for dinner
tonight—join the club. We’ll be asking again tomorrow.
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