Worse than Dog Poop

When I was growing up I had some weekly chores.  Among them was picking up the dog poop.  You would think I would have considered this a disagreeable chore, to say the least.  In actuality I embraced it, because it kept me out of the kitchen;  the things that went on in that room were much worse than dog poop.  While baking cookies & cakes was fun, the making of meals repulsed me - having to touch that raw meat, eew!, how gross was that?  It gave me the shivers.


My mother decided that my sister & I were to learn to cook.  Her plan was to have us cook on alternate Saturday nights.  I was first.


I wish I had a funny story to tell about that meal I made - but truthfully I don't even recall what it was.  Like any trauma, I must have totally blocked the event from my mind.  What I DO remember is that after that first evening, I never had to cook on a Saturday night again.  My sister took on the kitchen - cooking & cleaning up;  I was banished to the furthest reaches of the house:  the laundry room, & of course, the backyard for the dog poop.  I was thrilled - no more cooking!


In college my meal staples were Top Ramen noodles, sunflower seeds & frozen vegetables - & Arby's, my weekly splurge.  My roommates, (who would make actual meals!) would laugh at me.  
"How will you ever find a husband, Helen; you can't DO anything!" 
"I can do SOME things!"
"Like what?"  they would laugh, "You can't clean!"
"'Can't' & 'don't' are two different things..."
"And you certainly can't cook!"
"I won't need to cook,"  I sniffed,  "I will marry a Chinese chef & I will lounge around eating Chinese food all the day!"  Beats me where I thought that I, as an Accounting major, was going to run into a Chinese chef.  Twelve years later, tho, I did run into a French chef, & quickly married him before he could get away.


In my 20's the inside of my refrigerator looked like this: Diet Coke, Coors Light, & doggie-bags from where ever I had gone to lunch. In my freezer there was a pint of Ben & Jerry's, but only on grocery night - by the next day it had mysteriously vanished. My stove-top would accumulate a layer of dust in between my mother's visits.  She tried to interest me in things like crock pots & stews.  Raw meat touching!  Eew!  She was not successful.


Then I went to work on a cruise ship.  No cooking there! (Ha!  No cleaning either!  Take that, you old college roommates!).


Anyway, in 1995 I met & married MY chef & promptly sent him off to cook for people who would pay.  So where did that leave me?  With my good friends Ben & Jerry, of course!


Until...


Children!  Eek!  It seemed unlikely that I could justify raising my children to believe that Ben & Jerry's was an acceptable dinner.  I was going to have to suck it up - I was going to have to COOK!  Because, sure enough, as they grew those kids began to ask that most hated, that most dreaded & unanswerable question each & every night -


"Mom, what's for dinner?"  


Like I knew?!  I would open the refrigerator & gaze into it like it was a Magic 8 Ball - "The answer is unclear". (By the way, just what is wrong with Ben & Jerry's anyway? - it's loaded with calcium, right?  Why spend all this time & effort fortifying orange juice, for Heaven's sake, when you can get all your calcium naturally from those happy cows on the Ben & Jerry's container!  Besides, the kids LIKE it - you never hear of anyone saying, "You are not leaving this table until you have finished your ice cream!  & yes, I mean every BITE!")


(As an aside - No, Ben & Jerry's is not paying me.)


I have been unfortunately blessed with a memory that will only hold onto five meals at a time.  Sometimes a new meal comes in, dislodging a previous favorite, which is promptly lost & forgotten.  The meals I currently know are Pasta, Pizza, Stir-Fried Rice, Taco Salad & Morningstar Grillers.  Luckily I don't have to feed my husband, as he is not home at meal times most days.  I hope for my husband to cook on the one night when he IS home.  I hope for enough left-overs for the other night.  I don't always get my wish.  Then it is back to the Magic 8 Ball Fridge - only now my children are old enough to gaze into it themselves - "The answer is still unclear".  This is what happens when you put a woman who is perfectly happy making a meal out of the spice rack in charge of the food.


But, my children have not starved.  So what if some days they ate deli ham, a carrot & a piece of bread for dinner!  I do try to instill in them the knowledge (or the hope?) that one day they might get married into a 'regular' family, you know, people who eat more than five different meals in rotation.  I need to prepare them for real life, after all.   Give them something to look forward to when they go out into the world...


--which reminds me - stir-fried rice tonight - best go get that started.  Day after day, it never ends.  Tell you what, I'd rather go pick up dog poop.


Maybe one day we'll get a dog...