It really wasn't even a huge project, we didn't remodel anything. We didn't replace cabinets or counter tops or appliances. And yet, the inevitable disaster area was present for one ENTIRE month. For a person who doesn't rest easy when the house is a mess, (not that it never gets messy) this was a living nightmare; a constant source of unease and tension.
And the food situation! Oh the humanity! Somehow I was under the delusion that I would be able to pull food together in a torn-apart kitchen. But when push came to shove, and I had lessons to teach and painting to finish up, food preparation just wasn't top on my priority list. So we started dining out. A LOT. Enough so, that when I tallied the dollars up that we spent during January and February eating out, I thought I might mistakenly be looking at the bank statements of a Las Vegas high-roller. Enough that I resigned myself to the fact that we would have to take out a second mortgage on our home to pay it back. Enough that I briefly passed out and dreamed of a world where we hadn't spent enough to send 30 children to school in Kenya for 14 years. Waking up merely found me once again, facing this cruel reality.
With the kitchen project still unfinished I realized that we had to find another solution. Without any usable counter top space, a stove that was sitting precariously in the middle of the kitchen, and less than hygienic conditions, I realized we had only one option. Microwaveable food.
I grew up in a home with a thrifty mother who prepared well balanced meals for us. "Instant" anything was simply not in her menu plan or on her grocery list. (My poor mom, who lovingly baked us cookies from scratch, all the time had to listen to me whine about how I wanted "store bought" cookies just once in a while.) As I've matured, this is something I have tried to emulate - cooking from scratch, avoiding overly process foods. So it was with great shame that Brian and I went foraging for frozen foods that would take only minutes to heat up.
Into our grocery store we went, completely reversing our normal shopping experience. The items that our eyes normally just skim over were now what we sought. We loaded into our cart: Deli meats, bread, (so far not so bad), microwaveable Kraft macaroni and cheese cups, three boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes, a bag of frozen burritos, and a family-sized box of Hot Pockets. And then we hightailed it for the self-check-out counter with great haste lest someone we know, or even strangers, would see our embarrassing bounty.
Now, all of this is not to say that I am opposed to the occasional Hot Pocket or frozen burrito. I am not such an elitist that I find it impermissible to occasionally partake of such fare. Life gets busy, things happen. A frozen burrito can save the day. It was that our shopping cart was filled up entirely with these culinary delights. It felt like some sort of guilty pleasure to purchase so many easy options.
So we went home, filled up on, what became, really boring food, for the next several weeks, and gutted it out. (Ha! I didn't even mean to make a pun but it's funny right?) For those of you with a little spare time, here is a video of comedian Jim Gaffigan talking about Hot Pockets. (It's a clean clip, other than some talk of poop.) Every time we grabbed a Hot Pocket out of the freezer, we sang the theme song and thought of this little clip. Hope you enjoy!
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