I have been married for more than 16 years. During those blissful years I have made more mediocre dinners than my family would like to recall. The key to a bland meal; one which gets toddlers to blow raspberries and older kids to grasp at their throats and say belch, is to have dinner be the very last thing on your to do list for the day. My husband rides his bike to work each day. Each evening when he rides home, he peers into the kitchen window. As soon as his helmet light blinds me, it's the cue for me that it's time to panic. I have no dinner prepared. I start to open refrigerator doors as if some prepared meal will jump out and start singing a song and dance. Then I pace towards the pantry. There, I see various boxed foods that usually need something from the fridge to accompany them. I pace back to the fridge. Nothing from the fridge is matching what's in the pantry. The freezer however contains plenty that would accompany the food from the pantry boxes, but it's all rock hard and rendered useless. I feeling the squeeze of my unpreparedness as Chris walks in the door. I reach for a can as if I have been planning this all day. Out of this can, a dinner miracle will just pour out. But a bigger challenge awaits. I dig through the drawer and pull out my can't opener. I clamp that baby on and begin to go around the rim. It catches only some of the rim making jagged slices through the metal. I take another spin around the can. I curse under my breath (let's be honest, I curse out loud). On the third cycle, the can spurts out liquid and I lift the lid that now looks like uneven teeth. In 16 years, I haven't known a can opener that did it's job as its supposed to. My can't opener seems akin to our failed congresses, presidents and banks. It's fails me so often, that it's consistent with some of the worst airlines for on-time arrivals. My dinner is doomed. After nearly two decades of bad dinners, I find myself in Marshalls. I spend most of my time looking at boots, but I somehow get lost and end up in the kitchen aisle. Who knows how I got there? In the distance I see a shiny new can opener, one that touts perfect edges. Skipping the boot purchase, I take my new can opener home, full of hope for our future together. Dinner comes around again and nobody can figure the damn thing out. Once again my husband is shaking his head at me. Two college educations and neither of us can figure out the can't opener. But as luck would have it, a miracle happens the next day. After much inspection (and watching a youtube video), the top is cleanly removed from the can. There is great rejoicing in the Schulten house and no one will ever starve again. Today's ordinary miracle has come in a perfect package, a metal can adorned by clean edges and prepared by a mother with love.
4 Comments
Sue VanDerzee
11/20/2012 09:01:02 pm
:) Happy Thanksgiving!
Reply
Bob Ellis
11/20/2012 11:33:11 pm
Happy Thanksgiving!
Reply
Liz McCoy
11/21/2012 10:48:56 pm
Awesome Jen, made me chuckle. We, too, have a can't opener, and I have been in the frantic, husband walking in the door with no planned dinner situation many times than I would like to admit. I finally have gotten the knack of that can't opener, so it is great to know that there is hope for me! hee hee. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I am Thankful for your photos, blogs and wonderful humor :)
Reply
11/25/2012 10:14:54 am
Been there; done that about a thousand times. Seems to me we all need to go back to the farm and make our own cranberry sauce - sans the can't opener. Ha! Nice job. Jen.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2018
|