Hamburger | Rachael O. Phillips

“Why didn’t we do this years ago?” I savored my pasta Alfredo. My husband clasped my hand across the restaurant table.

We knew the answer.

Dining out now: priceless. Dining out as a family decades ago: panic.

Like many young parents, we cruised drive-throughs. The pizza delivery guy was our patron saint. Cabin fever drove us to kid-friendly establishments. Or maybe we wanted to watch our small children trash somebody else’s property.

Venturing out without Hubby, I wished I could sprout an extra arm. My children shot through restaurant parking lots like pinballs. After chasing them down and gathering survival gear, we headed inside.

If fast-food restaurants were in tune with young mothers, they’d provide parking lot pack mules to carry kids, diaper bags, baby seats, and the Strawberry Shortcake potty my discriminating two-year-old favored. Instead, the pack mule answered to the name “Mommy.”

Normal people ordered their favorite cholesterol. Me? I led my caravan to restrooms while others ate juicy burgers and hot, crusty fries.

My stomach growled. I hadn’t tasted anything warm since the ’70s — except melted ice cream.

Potty Party trumped Pity Party. I unbuttoned, unzipped, toilet-paper-ripped, then reequipped. I sang the Strawberry Shortcake song 19 times. I passed out compliments and balloons for jobs well done. Only two hours later, we emerged triumphant.

Finally approaching the counter, we received gold cardboard crowns. Baby ate his.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

Can you say “free toy”? Sisterly relations disintegrated when the restaurant had only one Princess Penelope Piddle doll. Discontinued.

Grudgingly accepting Princess Penelope Piddle Sings Punk cassettes instead, my offspring talked me into a playground picnic.

Are fast-food restaurants really responsible for children’s obesity? Of 11,451 hamburgers ordered, only 5.37 made it inside my kids.

Also, with chasing them, why do parents gain weight?

Oh. I ate the 11,445.63 leftovers.

When our family attempted meals at restaurants where diners didn’t ride horsies, toddlers left their smiles at the door. Ours loved fast-food forks. In “nice” surroundings, we hid metal ones and handed him spoons. He sent them flying, yelling, “FORK! FORK!” for a solid hour.

He couldn’t pronounce Rs.

You figure it out.

The following week, we donned cardboard crowns.

No more. Now, Hubby and I dine out weekly. We remain seated throughout the hot meal and converse.

I don’t even hide my fork.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your should-have-stayed-home restaurant story?

If you’re like me, you’re relishing signs of spring that crowd your senses like April customers at a Dairy Queen.

Signs like a dramatic improvement in Mr. Fahrenheit’s and Ms. Celsius’s attitudes. Like the births of tender, green leaves. Like bevies of daffodils flaunting finery like little girls on Easter morning.

We are in love with spring, the only season when even joggers smile.

So do flocks of cyclists and skateboarders. Intoxicated with warm weather, they forget that narrow-minded laws of physics don’t care if it’s spring. They still insist the riders cannot occupy the same space as a car.

However, though Midwestern weather is always iffy, scraping windshields and icy roads are perils of the wintry past, right?

Surprise! Road construction and road closing signs, like the season’s first weeds, have popped up along every highway.

Are we still in love with spring?

Absolutely. Apple and lilac blossom fragrances mingle with those of lighter fluid, charcoal, and hamburgers, wafting throughout neighborhoods. We have surrendered to the mad urge to clean grills for the first time this season (and the last).

Even the first smell of sunblock, now required for outdoor forays, becomes a portent of warmer and better things.

Spending more time in the yard, though, awakens us to the realization that snow no longer covers fast-food cups, broken pencils and soaked letters from the IRS. That hundreds of small stones, shoveled with snow into the yard, might cause sulky lawnmowers — already reluctant to start — substantial grief.

Are we still in love with spring?

Absolutely, as Hubby and I know the perfect antidote for home improvement commercials: getting away from it all, aka, camping. When the first ray of springtime sun penetrates March gloom, he begins preparations for our escape. Researching new camping gadgets — er, equipment — represses melancholy anticipation of yard work, repairs and remodeling. New purchases bloom on our Visa like dandelions.

Sadly, though, we give up winter’s comfort food to consume odd meals from the ice-encrusted freezer — such as Squash and Smelt Tortellini Surprise — as I make room for summer garden vegetables that, as of now, are only imaginary.

The smelt tortellini casserole wasn’t so bad. It beat the rhubarb-succotash dish, covered with ancient turkey gravy.

But we are still in love with spring.

Right, dear?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your favorite/least favorite signs of spring?

Rachael O. Phillips

Extraordinary Ordinary

Tag Archives: Hamburger

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