It's Friday at lunch. There's that takeout box in your refrigerator. You know the one - the one with half of a New York strip you got at Outback last Friday night. Yep, last Friday. Then it was a shining beacon of half-bleeding, expensive glory on your plate. That was then. How many days ago was that? You count it on your fingers ... six ... and a ... half? Hmmmm. It's a shame to chunk it ... I mean, you paid the equivalent of five meals at Moe's for it. But let's be honest - it's past the safe zone. Fooling yourself that it might be OK doesn't help anyone's case ... not even yours. ESPECIALLY not yours. We all know why.
But even so ... I can kind of understand this type of rationalization. I mean, there is a logical basis, however shaky. You feel as though you are keeping from wasting perfectly good (and pricey) food even if it means playing Russian roulette with your gastrointestinal system. I did this once with ziti. I lost.
But something happened Black Friday that I am still struggling to find a logical thread in.
Mom, Terri, Jess and I were braving the traffic, cruising along in the Pilot and chatting it up when suddenly the (very festive) Steven Curtis Chapman Christmas CD was interrupted by a high-pitched dinging that all of us save Mom heard and immediately placed as the Pilot's method of saying, "hellooooooo ... you're not wearing your seat belt." I like to think it's because the Pilot cares deeply about my family's safety.
Mom, however, went on about her business as if the dinging didn't exist. Finally, I said, "Hey, Mom, that thing's dinging because you're not wearing your seat belt."
"Oh," she said. "It'll stop." (She knows this because she ignores the dinging in her own car.)
I couldn't help myself. "True. But you really should be wearing your seatbelt."
"You're right," she replied. "I usually do when I'm out of town." No move to put on the seat belt.
A couple of minutes pass. The dinging starts up again. "Hey, Mom, the seatbelt thing is dinging again."
"Oh," she said. Despite being unconcerned for her own safety, Mom is nothing if not selfless and thoughtful. She realized it was driving us crazy, so she reached up, grabbed the seatbelt and crossed her body with it. I thanked her. We all did.
Moments pass.
The dinging returns.
"Mom? Why's it dinging again?"
"Ohhhhhh," she said. "I thought I could trick it."
"What?"
"I was just holding it here. It wasn't buckled. I thought I could trick it into thinking it was."
