Swiss Miss makes an awesome hot cocoa mix in the box marked Marshmallow Lovers Fat Free with Calcium. The box is huge, much bigger than the others on the shelf and since I tend to buy things before fully knowing what they’re about I figured there must be twenty packs of hot cocoa inside. There are in fact eight packets consisting of two pouches each, the cocoa mix and marshmallows remaining segregated for purely theatrical purposes. The effort required to prepare the beverage with all the packet ripping and water pouring easily burns off the 70 calories you’ll be consuming so it’s really all win here. There are fewer preservatives listed than I’ve seen on other brands but still enough to ensure the same shelf life as plutonium. Check it out.
This health conscious choice might lead you to believe that I am the individual you want preparing your daily meal plan. That would be a mistake. I was raised in a family that didn’t necessarily consider turkey a Thanksgiving staple. The first year I brought Husband to my parents’ for the holiday he was adorable and eager to be accepted and totally confused when my father dropped a Chinese take-out menu in his lap and asked for his order. As he stared at it my then teenage daughter leaned in to him and said, “Don’t look too hard for the turkey lo mein. Welcome to the family.”
By this time Husband had already endured a painful introduction to my minimal dining standards. A soft-spoken social worker, community service executive and adjunct college instructor, he had so far taken me to several lovely, upscale restaurants. One night we were running late for a movie and he asked me to make a suggestion for a quick meal. The directions I provided brought us to the entrance of a place Husband had only visited once or twice before – a place called Taco Bell – and as he began to gamely pull into a parking spot I glanced at my watch and said the drive-thru was a better idea. For him this was uncharted territory.
I always thought shouting a food order into an outdoor speaker was a universal tendency Americans were born with but as we sat in his car next to the microphone with his window tightly shut I learned otherwise. He was totally out of his element here, that element being the world of eating decent food indoors. Cars were pulling up behind us so I gently urged him to roll down his window and order me a Big Beef Burrito Supreme and something for himself. The voice from the electronic box instructed him to proceed to the next window. When we arrived there the employee requested $9.50. Husband took out a ten and asked for the food. “Next window. $9.50, please,” the teen responded. My husband looked at me like what kind of racket is this? He turned to the kid at the window and said, “Oh, no, first you give me the food.”
The family in the Explorer behind us gave a little honk. This could get ugly, I thought, who knows when those SUV occupants ate last? I told Husband it was okay, they would give us the food at the next window. He looked out the front windshield and shook his head. No, he’d seen scams before and this fit the profile. Once they have our money who’s to say they’ll care about feeding us? Shit, they won’t have to, that family will eat us. “GIVE HIM THE MONEY!” I shouted in the most fetching I-swear-I’m-not-a-psycho voice the circumstances would allow which prompted him to stuff the $10 bill through the window and gun the engine propelling us to the next window like we were in a getaway car.
I don’t remember what Husband ordered that night or what movie we saw but I do know none of this prevented him from proposing to me a few months later although it may provide a clue as to why we haven’t been to a drive-thru in the seven years since. And to all those readers who might have been misled about this entry based on the title, shame on you. You are my kind of people.