Saturday, November 7, 2015

Hey, you wanna pizza this?*

Sorry! (She types, cringing...yet completely helpless to stop herself, nonetheless...) So, yeah, it's been THAT kind of week. Not bad, mind you, just...draining. Case in point: we got to Thursday night--with Husband still out of town, remember--and I realized that I had....how shall I put this..."less than 0% interest in toiling away to concoct a hot, nourishing, home-cooked meal for my beloved children's dinner". Or even, you know. throwing together cold sandwiches for them, for that matter.

You see, their father generally takes care of dinner (bless his little pea pickin' heart) since he doesn't mind cooking, while I find it a tedious chore. However, he's been traveling so much lately that I'd run through my standard repertoire of quick/easy/minimal fuss dishes already. And with the whole "running between 2 jobs and supervising after-school...stuff", I was just D-O-N-E.

So after a bit of careful deliberation (yeah...approximately 10 seconds or so...) I determined that the absolute best thing to do in this instance was take the path of least resistance...or as it will forever after be known, "The Way of...Papa John's". Then I knocked on Riley's door to inform him of the plan. "I don't want any argument about this," I began sternly...then paused for maximum dramatic effect..."but we're having pizza tonight." He gazed at me calmly while absorbing this tidbit, then nodded sagely and said, "Ahhh...sarcasm...I get it." (Bwah hah hah! Well done, grasshopper...)

That was tremendously amusing to me (I told you I was slightly loopy by this point in the week, right?) so I approached Derek with a similar angle. "I have to tell you something, and I don't want you to even think about giving me a hard time, okay? Just deal with it--we're ordering pizza for dinner." His face briefly broke into a huge, delighted grin before he smothered it and whined "But....Mooooooom! I don't WANNA eat pizza!" It was a losing battle, however, and he gave up as quickly as he'd begun, as the impish twinkle returned to his eyes and his mouth regained its smirk.

But next, he startled me by suddenly getting super-serious and asking, "How many are we getting?" His follow-up question was a very calculated, "And how many pieces is that?" I could see where this was going, but I played along anyway. (All the while feeling like I was being grilled in some kind of...Italian interrogation...or something...) Continuing his line of inquiry, he wanted to know, "So, you'll eat, what, like 3 slices?" "Um...probably 2", I corrected. "Hmm....even if Riley wants 5...that leaves 9 for me!" he triumphantly crowed. Oh. Good. Grief. (Well, I suppose that could be viewed as an example of some Real Life Math for ya, if you want to look at it that way...or perhaps teenager using his considerable Deductive Powers for Good? Let's hope...)

But the final goofy punctuation mark on the whole...scenario of silliness...occurred when the steaming, fresh-from-the-oven boxes of goodness actually arrived on our front doorstep. As I took them from the very friendly delivery guy and we made chit-chat during the transfer he laughingly noted, "I always bring y'all pizza! I pulled up and said 'Hey, I know this house, I've been here before'!" Uh-oh. I swear we resort to the Pizza Solution only about once a month...but apparently we always happen to call when this particular driver is working.

Eh, whattya gonna do? As far as I was concerned, I fulfilled my Parental Responsibilities to feed my children--and for Bonus Points, I even made them a salad to go with it! But there was no required boiling/baking/sauteeing...microwaving...what have you, and very little cleanup. So yeah, it was definitely a Win-Win for Team WestEnders. Better yet: Husband will return....and pull Dinner Duty this weekend. Yaaayyyyyy!


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