You Want What?

Our teenager, Eric, was ravenous, but having difficulties finding the appropriate words to describe what it was he wanted to eat for dinner that night.

“Oh you know,” he said. “That bristly chunky meat stuff that we had before that was dipped in a brown sauce thing.”

Chuck and I were understandably flummoxed.

Eric told us to wait a moment as he ran outside into the drizzling rain.

“The food I’ve been thinking of looks like this,” he said, as he walked back into the house holding up a square piece of wet wood he had plucked from the mulched area in our front yard.

Now, here’s the scary part. Chuck and I immediately knew what he was talking about. I’m concerned what that says about our cooking skills that a piece of wood looks like dinner.

“Ah,” we answered in unison, “You want beef sirloin tips in gravy.”

What was once a classy dish served over egg noodles will now be forever known in our household as wet bark.

Bet you can’t wait to have dinner at our house.

The Rules of Acting Like an Adult

There are a lot of rules governing adulthood. Or at least it seems that way when you’re a teenager. For my son Eric’s 14th birthday celebration, he wanted an adult celebration – nothing childish. Trying to decipher what that meant was the hard part.

According to Eric, adults don’t have theme parties. Well, that’s a bummer. I rather like theme parties.

However, when all was said and done, water balloons and water gun fights were definitely on the adult list. The table laden with candy where everyone could gather to exchange gossip also was a must.

Can’t think of many adults who would argue with that plan.