August 21, 2008
Today, I thought about mashed potatoes. Not the ones that you make yourself by stripping, boiling, and whipping, but the boxed kind. As if eating mashed potatoes wasn't bad enough already, what I craved was the kind in a box, chock full o' additives, with garlic flavoring.
I haven't thought about potatoes in a long time. I've been making better food choices in this last year, taking great care to eat dark, leafy greens and tomatoes and less of everything else, and I've lost 50 pounds as a result. It's not just about the eating; it's also about moving a lot, and I do something that resembles running although I'm sure that there's not an Olympic athlete who would recognize it as such. It's not pretty, but it works. So given my regimen, I don't think that I've had mashed potatoes for ... well .. about a year.
And then today, The Sainted One told me that he'd taken some chicken breast out of the freezer. I thought about what we might have with that chicken breast, and considered our recent staples of broccoli, or a simple salad, or Brussels sprouts. But what I really wanted was boxed mashed potatoes with garlic flavoring, and I couldn't get them out of my head.
While piles of fluffy mashed potatoes were making my brain all gooey and off-white, The Sainted One was at the grocery store. He looked for something to accompany the chicken, and although we'd purposefully avoided mashed potatoes for a long time, it struck him as a fine side dish for the night's meal. He believed that there was a box in the pantry, so he shopped, checked out, and came all the way home only to realize that the cupboard was bare. So he got back in the car and returned to the grocery store to get them.
When I – who had not exchanged a word with him for hours – walked in the door and saw the box on the kitchen counter, I was stunned. And excited! I was having garlic mashed potatoes for dinner!
This kind of projection/telepathy thing has been taking place a lot lately. We think of someone, they call us. We mention someone that we haven't talked to in a decade, we get an e-mail the next day. We can't seem to pick a winning Lotto ticket or the fastest lane in a rolling slowdown, but on most other things, we're golden.
Don't worry. We'll only use this gift for the good of the world. And for boxed mashed potatoes with garlic flavoring. Or maybe Baby Ruth candy bars. I've been thinking a lot about Baby Ruths lately ...
Comments
cathy (cathy) says...
Pat, you married the right man! I haven't had mashers out of a box in decades, but they were a staple in our kitchen in my youth. I didn't know how real mashed potatoes were made until I was well into my teens!!
August 24, 2008 at 5:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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