And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.
I had a good bout of feeling sorry for myself at dinner a little bit ago. Michael was the cook in our family – I only know how to make a few things, and I don’t know how to make them for one person. My schedule is such that I normally teach until about 9:00 at night, and so when I come downstairs from my office or upstairs from my classroom, I’m ready for dinner, and Michael always had it ready for me.
Now there’s just me. And I don’t know how to cook. Nor do I have any real interest in doing so. One of my quirks, along with things like being terrified of birds and, you know, being a writer, is I don’t like to touch meat. It makes my skin crawl. This makes it really hard to cook.
So tonight, I had a break between clients and class, so I hustled down to the kitchen to figure out something for dinner. And the only thing I had time for was the can of Spaghetti-Ohs in my cupboard.
Remember Spaghetti-Ohs? The “neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon! Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Ohs!” Yep, those.
The can I had in my cupboard had those mysterious meatballs in it. I made it even better (worse?) by slicing up a couple hot dogs and throwing those in. And then I sat down to eat, by myself, at my island. And as I grumped about it, I took a bite, and you know what I remembered?
I freaking love Spaghetti-Ohs!
When I was a kid, my father was a bit…let’s say, picky with food. Some of it was positive, meaning that he would eat it. He’d build huge mashed potato mountains, similar to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He did the same with baked beans, and then loaded both with ketchup, running from top to bottom. He would take a Twinkie, then get out the can of Reddi-Whip, stick the nozzle into the Twinkie, and blow it up until the sponge cake was stretched to maximum proportions. Orange juice had to be a certain brand and a certain pulp, which he would drink at certain times of the day in a certain glass. The glass was never used for anything else. Oh, and he loved split pea soup, which he insisted we loved too, even as we gagged. I can’t even look at it to this day.
But some things weren’t so positive. He’d sit down to a meal we’d had millions of times before, look at it, and say to my mother, “What’s this slop?”
And there were certain things he would not eat. One of which was Spaghetti-Ohs. Also La Choy’s chop suey (another theme song: La Choy makes Chinese food…swing American!). And frozen banana cream pie.
My dad traveled a lot for his job, and whenever he was gone…my mother made all of these contraband foods. I remember her delight at just having to throw a can of Spaghetti-Ohs into a pot and heat it up, and set an aluminum pie tin filled with frozen pie on our table, to our cheers. No slop here. Easy to make.
And fully appreciated.
And so I wiped the self-pity away. I sprinkled my bowl of Spaghetti-Ohs with parmesan cheese, as if it was the finest spaghetti carbonara served in a fancy Italian restaurant. And then I ate it while humming the theme song. Too bad I didn’t have some wine to go with it.
What wine goes with Spaghetti-Ohs? Maybe I’ll pick some up for next week, along with a new can..
Now if I only had Jello 1-2-3 for dessert. Remember that? (Jello 1-2-3’s slogan: The only Jello that tops itself!) And, in my father’s memory, I could add Reddi-Whip.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
Check out the commercials!