DINNER
Dad’s house: Dinner
I felt a sharp pain pierce my stomach.
“I’m so hungry!” I whined. “I haven’t eaten for seven hours! I’m eating away at my muscles!”
“Why are you so damn hungry?” my brother asked me.
“They wouldn’t let me eat at play practice!”
“Dinner!” my dad yelled at me from downstairs.
“Coming!” I screamed and bounded down the stairs. “Food, Food, Food!” I chanted. “Je veux manger du nourriture! Manger! What do we have to eat?” I looked down at the pan and saw some sort of meat substance looking back at me. “What is this?” I asked. I was wary because he is known to sneak tofu into our meals, then he gets real offended if we act suspicious.
“It’s meat, you’ll like it.” he responded.
“I know it’s meat, but what animal did it come from?”
“It is from chicken legs, you know… dark meat. You like dark meat.” I am suddenly reminded of a scene I the movie Better Off Dead where the mother makes a strange dish and tells John Cusack, “It’s got raisins in it, you like raisins.”
“Oh… Ah!” I cried, I thought that I saw the chicken move. Realizing that it was just one of the many tricks my eyes play on me, I proceeded over to the tortilla section. Three choices…Let’s see. I thought to myself the whole wheat flour tortillas look completely unappetizing. Corn! This might be good! Oh wait, no, they’re stale. Last one… please let it be good! Ohh! Real flour tortillas! Score! I took two tortillas. I knew that I didn’t like flour tortillas with this kind of taco, but at least it wasn’t stale.
I grated the cheese and set it gracefully on my tortilla. Now for the chicken, I thought, I don’t want any, but I have to make it seem like I’m eating some. I cleverly disguised my chicken and cooked the taco in the microwave. Now I have to dish up some vegetables (that’s the word my dad uses, “dish up” I don’t get it but, oh well.)
“We have corn and peas. Beans, too.” he told me. I’ll take some corn and peas. Beans...? I don’t like beans, but I need some protein. I scooped the beans onto my plate. Aaahhh! Perfect! Then, my brother accidentally grates too much cheese and decides to throw the excess on my plate.
“Here you go!” he tells me as he disturbs the balance of my thought out meal.
“Thanks a lot, jerk.” I mutter under my breath. What can I do? Get mad at him? What would that accomplish? I tread slowly to my assigned seat at the dinner table. It has gotten to the point now where I don’t want to sit anywhere but my assigned seat. I’ve been sitting there for five years!
I’ll skip right through the whole eating part, because that is a lot of mindless chatter. “What did you do today, Morgan?” they ask me. Then, I have to find some way to be amusing or creative, that usually consists of saying things that are random or out of the ordinary. Also, my brother and I will get yelled at for having our elbows on the table, or pushing our food onto our fork with our finger, or reaching over someone to get the salt instead of asking them to pass it to you.
After dinner, I had to look at the calendar to see if it is my dish night or not. There are also trash days, but only on Thursdays. There used to be water nights where you had to water the plants, but they don’t exist anymore. Lo and behold! It was my dish night! Oh could I please, please, please stay down here longer? (If you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm) I really want to stay in a place where I pull on my faux personality and don’t have the option to change out of it.
Doing dishes is another thrilling time during the post-dinner period. It is not so bad, just annoying and time-consuming. First you have to put the leftovers in Tupperware, it doesn’t seem difficult but looks can be deceiving! Imagine digging through a cabinet full of unmatched lids and bottoms. Once you do that, you wash the pans. I don’t have a problem with that. I agree with the statement that if you cook, you don’t have to clean. I have a problem with the fact that we have to dry the dishes! Why? Because they don’t stay shiny if you do that. They don’t stay shiny! Who’s going to see these pots anyway? Maybe they need to stay shiny in the off chance that one of my step-mom’s relatives will come over and see them. Shouldn’t family be the people that you are comfortable with? Shouldn’t they be the ones that don’t judge you? Ay dios mio! Ca me rend folle!!!
Dinner: Mom’s house
I feel a sharp pain in my stomach. Realizing that it is hunger, I decide to peruse the refrigerator.
“I made you guys spaghetti last weekend. It’s in the container with the blue lid. Do you want me to make it for you?” my mother asks my brother and me.
“Yeah!” my brother yells from the living room.
“You have to come here to tell me how much you want!” she yells back.
“Oh, then nevermind.” he calls.
“He’s so pathetic!” I tell my mom. “He would rather starve than heat up his own food! It’s not like he has to make anything, he just has to heat it up!”
“Boys are like that!” she tells me.
“That’s pretty depressing.”
“Is this enough for you?” she asks me.
“Yeah, that’s good. Thanks.” She heated up Matt’s first, even though he still hasn’t emerged from the couch. Finally, the timer goes off.
“It’s ready, Matt.” She told him and he scrambled to get the food. “Is it all right if I go out tonight?” she asks us.
“That’s fine.” I told her.
“Why are you going out?” Matt whined.
“I have a date. I won’t leave if you don’t want me to, but tonight’s my last chance to see him for awhile.”
“That’s fine, Mom!” I said exasperatingly.
“Well, you know that I still have a lot of mother guilt!”
“MOM! It’s fine! GO!” I tell her.
“Yeah.” my brother chimed in.
“Thanks! Oh! I forgot! Matt, will you unload the dishwasher tonight?”
“Why do I have to do it?” he whined.
“Because Morgan does it every other time! Will you also match the socks? Oh! Morgan, can you get the mail even though it is dark?”
“Sure, I’ll just take a weapon to protect me.” I scoured the kitchen looking for something to defend myself with. A knife? No, what if the neighbors see me? They’ll think that I’m a serial killer! I could take a flashlight, but I think that we lost all of ours. A hammer! That’s it! I got the hammer out of the cabinet and proceeded down the walkway. It’s pretty scary out here. What was that? Nothing, it was nothing… I can always attack someone with my hammer. Here’s the mail, now get inside! Go, go, go! Now open the doorway! Safe! I set the mail on the counter and put the hammer back in the cabinet. Then I sit at the table and proceed to eat my dinner.
“It’s very good, thanks!” I told her.
“What do you think of it, Matt?” she asked.
“It’s okay…” he said. Jerk! Why don’t you at least say thanks?
“Do you want some bread?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Matt cries. “Toasted?”
“How about microwaved, toasted takes too long.” she offered.
“Fine.” he said like he was making a huge compromise.
“Here. Now I have to go!”
“Bye, Mom!” I told her.
“Bye!”
Of course Matt doesn’t do the dishes until right before Mom returned, and he doesn’t fold his socks right away, either.