A Line Must Be Drawn, Or a Leash Might Be Shortened

I might as well start a second career as a dentist. Prompting Hick to voice what he wants to eat is like pulling teeth. You'd think answering a question would be the easy part. It's not like he has to make the grocery list, drive to town, brave the beeper carts in Walmart, possibly rip a leg off in Country Mart, locate the items, load them in the cart, wait in line longer than shopping, take the items out of the cart, load the bags in the back of T-Hoe, drive them home, carry them in, put them away, then cook them within a given time frame, and wash the dishes. Uh uh. All he has to do is say what he wants. But he won't!

Thursday, I finally got him to mumble that chicken and dumpling might be good. Hick knows darn well what kind of chicken and dumplings I make. Rudimentary ones. Nothing like your grandma used to make. Nothing like out of a can of Sweet Sue. Just cut-up tortillas tossed in a pan of boiling chicken broth and cream of chicken soup, a little ground black pepper and minced garlic added. Boiled 5 minutes exactly. Easy to make. Once you've done your shopping.

But then, get THIS, Hick said, "I want to take a bowl to Swappy at the auction." Let the record show that Swappy is a woman. So, in effect, Hick is asking me to make a meal for his lady friend! What the Not-Heaven? As if I'm not surly enough waiting on HIM hand and foot, now I have to prepare a meal (such as it is) for his female companion who is NOT ME!

"Oh, Val," you might say, because we're informal like that, and on a first-name basis, "Hick is surely just bragging about your culinary skills to some brazen hussy who is trying to get her hooks in him."

Hick DID say that he was telling Swappy about my chicken and dumplings last week, because she said how much she and her husband (even laster to know about this relationship than ME) love them, but they're so hard to make.

"When I told her, 'No they're not,' and how YOU make them, she kind of looked at me funny."

Indeed! Probably looked askance at him, wondering why he had to mention HIS WIFE.

"Anyway, I told her I'd bring her a bowl and let her try it. So if you can make them on Friday or Saturday...I'm going to the auction both nights."

"You can't take her a BOWL of chicken and dumplings. How are you going to drive with that?"

"I mean a container. You know. Like one of your Chinese soup containers."

"I need those containers! Everybody keeps them! They're good heavy plastic, and they don't spill. But Sis has never returned any, and Genius threw them away after he took back leftovers, and Auntie probably threw them away when I put her Chex Mix in them. That's why last time, I put her Chex in those Walmart deli thin plastic containers. Same shape, but not sturdy. I don't care if people throw them away. I can put some chicken and dumplings in one of them for you to take."

"Or you can put them in Ziploc bowls."

"WHAT? What in the world? Ziploc bowls? I don't get it."

"They're like baggies. But they're bowls."

"Huh?"

"You know. Disposable bowls."

"You mean like those square ones I have, to put your bologna in? With the blue lids?"

"Yeah. They sell them at Walmart."

"Okay. So you want me to make chicken and dumplings for you to give a lady at the auction, AND you want me to buy containers to put it in? I don't think so. She can eat out of a Walmart deli container. Are you taking her a fork, too?"

"Yeah. A plastic one."

"Well, you'll take those black plastic ones from Hardee's. Not the smooth white plastic ones out of that box we had for the solar car barbecue."

Really. I don't see why Swappy needs to be treated like royalty.

Okay. So straighten her crown and polish her scepter. I bought these four containers (cost me one-and-a-half 44 oz Diet Cokes!) so Her Royal Highness could receive her poor man's chicken and dumplings in style.

I stood my ground on the Hardee's forks, though.
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For anybody wondering from yesterday what a Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheel is...it's my lunch of choice these days. Of course, they are rare. So you'll have to make do with this picture of the lesser pinwheel, the cinnamon babka, if you will...the Turkey pinwheel.

It's meat and cheese rolled up in a tortilla with lettuce and ranch dressing.

Let the record show that the ingredients are not always equally distributed. But it's a tasty lunch for $2.98. It tastes even better because I don't have to make it myself. I've tried, but I can't seem to get the right order of the ingredients. I've deconstructed plenty of them, but mine don't turn out the same. I DID discover that adding 1/4 of a slice of bacon to each pinwheel makes the Turkey version better.