Two Women's Lunch Is Another Man's Supper

Wednesday I met my favorite gambling aunt for lunch at the FelineFish Skillet. We had the all-you-can-eat. It's only $3 more than a dinner, you know. So it's really more economical, because if you don't ask for more, THEY LET YOU TAKE WHAT'S LEFT ON THE PLATTER!

We got all three meats. Auntie especially wanted the catfish, and I especially wanted the chicken. We took a little shrimp, just because. It's all you can eat, you know. Even though only Auntie tried a shrimp. One. For sides, we got SLAW, baked beans, wedge fries, hush puppies, steamed vegetables, pickles/onions, and mashed potatoes.

The good news is, Auntie doesn't eat leftovers! She said I could take all the leavin's. It's on principle that she gets the all-you-can-eat. She wants more than two sides. Oh, don't you worry about Auntie going hungry by not taking some leftovers. She had a giant piece of pecan pie, and took what she had left of that. I guess pie is not a leftover.

I packed up two rectangular foam containers with 2 pieces of catfish, about a dozen shrimp, 1 chicken strip (for ME to have tomorrow), a pile of wedge fries (because they were cold when we got them), mashed potatoes, three hush puppies, and two tubs of tartar sauce. I had three round foam containers that I filled with slaw, baked beans, and the pickles/onions. They have some crunchy bacon-striped pork rinds that they put out when you are waiting, and I put them in a plastic sack. Auntie wanted me to take the tubs of butter as well, but I didn't want to be a hog.

The plan was for Farmer H to have the spoils for supper, and again the next day. Farmer H is no stranger to the leftover. It makes him no nevermind who has been munching on his food before he inherits it. C'mon. What's a few cooties from people related by marriage? It's not like the food in some countries (I'm lookin' at YOU, India), where people eat food from a market, where it has been sitting all day in the hot sun being massaged by fly feet.

Let the record show that we didn't eat off any of it. THIS TIME. We just picked it up off the platter, and gave him the sides that were left in the bowls that we had dipped out of and put on our plates to eat. Though in the past, we have taken him pasta right off a plate that was eaten from. Not a strange plate, of course, from another table. It was a known mouth with known saliva.

Anyhoo, I could have eaten more, but I have been making wise choices, you know. My feast was by no means all I could eat. I had three chicken strips and one piece of fish, two fries, a dab of slaw, and two pickle spears. I could have done way more damage to that spread. In fact, I only had the third chicken strip because Auntie was having that giant wedge of pecan pie. And believe me, it almost killed me to leave that one chicken strip, with the tasty special sauce sitting there in its squirt bottle at my right hand. But I resisted the urge.

I saved the biggest and plumpest chicken strip. I knew it would be quite satisfying for a simple supper after I met my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel for lunch the next day.

Farmer H was an hour late coming home from work. He bothered to call me at the time he usually gets home. After I had frittered away an hour waiting on him, ready to warm his leftovers in the oven to make them crisp. Once he told me he hadn't left yet, he was on his own. But I DID tell him the oven temp and time to warm them, and put some non-stick foil on a pizza pan for his warming needs. The two rectangular foam containers and the three round ones were stacked atop one another in a plastic bag on the top shelf of FRIG II.

I heard Farmer H stumping around above me when he got home. He didn't have any questions. So I figured he made his supper without incident. About an hour later, I went to the bottom of the steps and hollered up to him.

"Was your supper okay?"

"Yeah. It was good!"

"Is there some left for tomorrow? Or do I need to plan something else?"

You know. For appearances. To seem like I care about his well-being. I was sure there had been two meals there. You know where this is headed, don't you?

"I ate it all."

"Oh. Uh. ALL of it?"

"All but half of that chicken strip. And Juno ate that."

"What? I brought that for ME? You never eat the chicken!"

"I did tonight. Half of it."

"And Juno."

"Yeah. She really liked it."

That'll teach ME to save the largest, plumpest chicken strip! I daresay it would have been mighty tasty with the special sauce. If I'd known its soon-to-be fate, I would have saved the smallest, thinnest chicken strip.

Note made to self.