Laziness Takes Planning and Effort

©Lisa Barker

Deciphering what I scrawled on a Tupperware lid for a container I chucked in the freezer months ago is not one of my better skills.  But I can always use it to my advantage.

The other night I defrosted what I thought was beef stew and came to discover later that it was this mysterious opaque liquid.  It tasted like a sweaty pig.  Ah, ham stock!  But I had no time left to make pea soup for dinner.

So we ordered from McDonald’s.

Now some might suggest that I slow down and take the time to properly label these containers.  But here’s the method to my madness.

Four o’clock in the afternoon rolls around.  I haven’t got a clue what to make for dinner because I don’t want to cook dinner anyway.  About this time the kids start bugging me: “What’s for dinner?”  And they get one of three answers:  “Food,”  “I don’t know,” and “Your guess is as good as mine.”

So I open up the freezer and search for one of my mystery bowls.  And then I pray that whatever it is, it’s really gross and we get to order out for pizza.

But there’s more!  I have to wait until most of the cereal in the house is gone so my husband doesn’t proclaim that Happy Pops are good enough for dinner.

I also have to work up a sweat and look like I’ve been run over by a truck when he walks in the door.  This will cue him that I’ve had a bad day and ordering out is the least he can do for me…his poor wife…who selflessly brought five children into the world.

But I don’t tell him that.  Knowing my husband it wouldn’t work.  But sometimes he takes pity on me if I’ve put in a good effort.

So just before he gets home I tidy up—not something I am prone to do so it’s a pleasant shock when he walks in the door.  This is how I work up a sweat.  For that ‘truck ran’ me over’ look I just have the boys start yelling each other on cue (“Hey, yell louder and you’ll get ham and pineapple on that pizza!”) so I can look wearily at my husband and ask him, “How was YOUR day?” as if mine was so horrible his couldn’t compare.

It takes a lot of effort to get out of cooking dinner, probably even more than it takes to cook it.  But I don’t care.  If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.  I mean, after all, that IS why they invented drive-thrus right?  So I can drive through in my jammies and pick up dinner?

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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

About the Author

Lisa Barker writes the award-winning syndicated parenting humor column, Jelly Mom™ - a weekly feature in The Salinas Californian (circulation 19,000) and monthly in School News Roll Call parent’s magazine (circulation 323,000+). Jelly Mom™ has also been printed in The Eureka Reporter, Omaha Family, Mount Shasta Herald Supersaver and Llano Estacado Family Resources in Texas.

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