I may have to bend

Last night, as I was putting Hannah to bed, I overheard AJ complaining to Peter about how much my non-shopping week sucks. He's had some short school days and come home hungry only to find there's "nothing to snack on." (You know, except for the potato chips in the pantry, or the bananas, or hot dogs, or windmill cookies, or leftover chocolate cake...)

Later on I came down to the kitchen to pick up a bit and he stomped in and bitched at me about it (in a kidding-on-the-square kind of way). I put up my hand and said, "Did it ever occur to you to walk down to the corner store yourself?" He replied indignantly, "What is this, the 17th century?!"

That boy is spoiled. I mean, I can see how it's a pain in the ass to not have milk or bread in the house, and he is certainly accustomed to my taking care of this sort of thing, but jeezy creezy the damn corner store is less than half a block away. Last I checked, his legs are working, even if 80% of the time they're limply hanging over the arm of the couch. In the words of Apu: we will all have a chance to be gouged. What the hell would he do if I were incapacitated? Scavenge? Hunt? Gather berries? Gnaw off an appendage? What the fuck?

AJ's infancy is not the reason I might have to bend, though. Peter is continuing his Wheeze Through 2010 campaign with...this has to be his fourth or fifth illness of the new year. Kidney stone, flu, weird rash that he contends was not an STD, and now flu, we think, again...so it's the fourth. Poor guy, he's a walking hospital ward. Anyway -- and Peter, if you're reading this, I'm saying this with love -- Peter is nearly as clueless as AJ when it comes to feeding himself at home. If it's more complicated than opening a package or can, dumping the contents in a bowl or on a cookie sheet, and heating it, it's beyond his ken and it will somehow require at least three phone calls. He has gotten better over the years, but it's (perhaps unfairly) frustrating for me to look at a pantry and refrigerator full of possibilities for lunch and have them stand in front of it and say, "There's nothing to eat." Even so, Peter's sick. It would be needlessly cruel to leave him soupless or to fend for his own soup, wouldn't it? Sigh. We shall see, I suppose.

And for the record, here are the staples we are out of: milk, bread, plain yogurt (for smoothies), dish detergent, AJ soap, pinto beans, and grape jelly. I mean, it's not like we're dying here.