Thursday, June 3, 2010

Welcome to the Diner

Hello! My name is Mommy, and I'll be your server this evening.

I will also be this eatery's chef, hostess, manager and busboy.

Yeah, Mommy is talented like that. That's how Mommy rolls.

Tonight we'll be serving chicken nuggets, pizza and some sort of dead animal for your Dad. Oh - and a dinky-dang-diet-meal for me.

That's right. Chef Mommy here will prepare FOUR different meals for FOUR different people! Just as she has for the last SEVEN years...

Mommy is amazing like that. That's how Mommy rolls.

I won't bother you with The Chef's Special. It's irrelevant. I haven't prepared a recipe since you were born. Recipes, in general, don't come from a box. And we all know, if it doesn't come out of a box, it isn't going into your mouth.

You say you'd like chocolate milk, and not the plain variety I've set before you? So sorry, sir! Here - let me fix that. No, really. Don't get up. Serving you is one of life's great pleasures.

Again - that's how Mommy rolls.

What's that, young miss? You say you don't like the service here? Not enjoying Mommy's mood tonight? You say you want to go to Grandma's house?

I tell you what: Let's go to Grandma's house. Only, not the cookie-baking, junk-making granny you know today.

Let's have some fun. Let's go back...way back to the 70s and see what Granny's making for dinner, when she was a mom like me. Close your eyes, now...

Hmm...what's this? Why, it's pork chops - with (gasp!) bones in-tact, fried in a skillet. And - (yikes!) - lima beans. Rounding it all out, we have (horrors!) baked potatoes, with salt, pepper and a little butter. No sour cream in sight.

Still four people. But guess what, kids? ONE meal. Mmm-hmmm. Don't like it? That's fine with Grandma.

Don't worry. She does offer choices. You can:

1. Eat the pork chops, beans and potatoes, or
2. Go right to bed.

Because that? Is how 70s Mommies rolled.

Well...look who's returned! Welcome back to 2010, kids.

Enjoy your meals.

5 comments:

  1. Dawn you captured it so well. You should be running a catering business with all your talents. Wait, you already are.

    At least they will eat a meal from a box and not insist that real food comes from a car and a man who deliver it to the door.
    Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.

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  2. OMG--so TRUE! How did our generation change things so much? My kids didn't know what a casserole was until college! I really enjoy your writing.

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  3. Heidi, Wanda, I love your writing, too. Wanda's self-deprecating, quirky style, and Heidi's wacky family mishaps...you guys lol me!
    I don't know why it changed for this generation, and you're absolutely right, Heidi. My kids would die before tasting a casserole. I have noticed a disturbing trend of "kids calling the shots" in the family, and it irks the be-jeepers out of me. Except for this meal thing, I try not to let my kids get away with that too much.

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  4. You mommies of the '00s just roll waaaaay too much! But then, you're probably a better mommy than I was.

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  5. DUDE!!! You are singing MY song! We always had some sort of meat, bland starch (or Stove TOp if we were lucky) and corn/green beans/fill in the blank veggie from a CAN. And that? Was that!

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