Normally, LCB works primarily out of the house, but he has been traveling extensively the last few months, being gone more than he’s been home. Thankfully, however, he is at the end of his traveling streak, and we are in the process of returning to our previously scheduled arrangement of being in each other’s hair all the day long.
It’s not that I’m not accustomed to his traveling; pre-children, back when LCB worked for The Man, he regularly took lengthy international trips. It got to be a surefire thing that some drama would ensue when he was thousands of miles away: my car overheated on the highway while he was in Saudi, the furnace flatlined in December while he was traveling through South Africa, the air conditioning bit the dust in July while he was lounging working a show in Acapulco, a bird got trapped in our fireplace while he was doing something annoyingly fun like attending a beer tasting (strictly for business purposes) in Germany, and the like.
But, these international travels were typically planned well in advance, and were mostly all before the small people decided to come take up residence with us. The last few months, however, his travels have been mostly last-minute deals where I scrambled to rearrange schedules and where I stood alone to face three picky eaters as my oven slowly went from poorly-functional to flat out nonfunctional. I think perhaps the low point was when I found myself strangely disappointed that the small people didn’t like the five-dollar take-out pizza I picked up on our way home from errands one night. Seriously, the fact that my kids refuse all fast food except, randomly, Taco Bell is a good but decidedly inconvenient truth.
My heart goes out to LCB, because these trips are less glamorous than the ones he used to take, and now he’s leaving behind four family members instead of one. But recently, he scored big on one of his trips both in his mind and, more importantly, in mine.
Fortuitously finding himself at a major food show in a large city, he managed to return with substantial quantities of food in general and chocolate in particular.
At one of the booths, a lady who is now included in my will gave him some snack-size samples of chocolate. When LCB made some comment about the positive impact that coming home with these chocolate samples would have on his marriage (an astute observation on his part), the lady said, “Oh, these are for your wife? Hold on a minute then.â€
She then turned to a man nearby and asked for the keys to the back room.
The lady, clearly wise beyond her years, returned from the chocolate utopia the back room a minute later with three Island Mom-sized bars.
Yes, a moratorium on business travel has been instituted for LCB. Naturally, next year’s food show is not included in the moratorium.
Sometimes, he might just have to take one for the team.
That woman? Absolutely brilliant! As is LCB for bringing for bringing home the good stuff.
He knows who butters his bread.