I think I may have a split personality. How else can I explain why the me who goes to the big box store and spends hundreds of dollars on food (not to mention the non-food items) is so radically different from the me who decides I have nothing to cook as soon as we get home (translation: I don't want to).
I'm not kidding. David and I will fill up our two reusable bags that hook across the sides of the shopping carts, fill both to the brim and even stick a few items around the sides and STILL, we'll have nothing I'm in the mood to prepare. It's a good thing the cart will hold only two. Maybe that's why the fast-food places and restaurants are so busy on the same days that the big box store is so crowded. After spending hours (okay, minutes but it seems like hours) shopping, they're like us–too exhausted to cook. Just putting it all away requires a short nap when we get home.
I was a unhappy shopper when they took a popular fast food franchise out of their store. It was the only place where we could sit down and take a break from shopping while pouring some caffeine, and sometimes adding a nice fat and calorie-laden snack, into our weary bodies before we could muster the energy and nerve to proceed to the checkout counters. It takes a lot to gird our loins and face our grocery bill total. Thank goodness for the self-checking app I have on my phone. I can scan everything before we put it in the bags, scan the check-out monitor, while ignoring the total until we get the credit card bill, and off we go. It's the only way I can get David to go with me and I need him to haul everything to the car and into the house.
Our grandkids like to go there so they can "surprise" their Mema who has worked for a couple of the big box stores for approximately 20 years. I will text her that we're here, she tells me where she is, and I guide the kids to her so they can be the ones who find her and "surprise" her. Of course, this only works with the grandsons. Our youngest granddaughter is 15. She would just roll her eyes if I suggested such a thing to her.
Two of our grandsons spent a couple of nights with us recently. They were lobbying for three, but Nana and Papa have just so much energy to give to one mellow 13-year-old and one very rambunctious nine-year-old boy. The nine-year-old is turning into the king of malapropisms. I can remember only two of them. The first one took place during a conversation with his dad.
Zane, dressed in costume, declared, "Look, dad, I'm Amazon Prime!"
"Don't you mean Optimus Prime?" dad said while trying not to laugh.
"Oh, yeah," Zane said.
Fast forward to this past week.
"What do you boys want for supper?" I asked, putting it on their shoulders since I HATE planning, shopping for, or preparing meals.
"Spaghetti," Zane shouts. (He shouts everything. He can be quite loud. LOL)
His big brother, Ethan, just goes along with whatever he says although he did add meatballs to the list. They got meat sauce instead. I don't do meatballs when I can just crumble hamburger meat. I know what you're thinking, I could buy them frozen. I could if I could remember to get any when I'm at the big box store.
"Okay," I say, "Spaghetti with garlic toast it is."
I like making this dish because it's quick and easy. Ethan likes to 'help' me cook. He's great at crushing the hamburger meat in the pot. I have to watch him with the sauce though. Sometimes he gets a little too enthusiastic with his stirring, but he never takes his eyes off the pot. He told me mom never lets him help cook. I told him that was because their kitchen is too small for too many cooks. I think he believed me.
Anyway...Zane asked, "Can we have Papa John cheese with it?"
This gave me pause. What the heck was Papa John cheese and why would we want pizza cheese with our spaghetti? I wracked my brain for a few minutes saying "Papa John cheese" to myself over and over until it dawned on me. He was asking for parmesan cheese. I had to leave the room so he wouldn't see me laughing.
"You mean parmesan cheese?" I asked when I finally quit laughing enough to talk.
"Oh, yeah, that," Zane replied.
These boys can keep us in stitches.