Everyone knows that time isn't an absolute. There's real time -- the stuff that's measured by clocks-- and real-er time -- the stuff that's measured by us.
Today's Real-er Time Measurement: The extra time it takes to make hamburgers once you realize you can't cook the dinner you were going to make.
Yesterday, I'd taken the day off and decided that as part of that, I'd give Sweetie a break and do her grocery shopping and cook dinner. I decided that for dinner we'd have BLT sandwiches and some fruit salad, and I loaded up the Babies! and headed off to get the week's groceries.
Two-and-a-half hours later, I had put away the groceries, I had the bacon in the oven (a trick Sweetie learned when she was in her "cooking shows" phase (now she's back in her "cop shows" phase. I'm waiting for her "cartoon phase" so she and I will agree on what a television is to be used for) and I was making the toast for the sandwiches and I'd sliced up the tomato when I realized: huh! No Lettuce.
Since you can't have a "BLT" without the "L" I had to at the last minute change dinner to "burgers," and begin cooking those instead -- which caused dinner to be delayed, giving the Babies! more of chance to draw with markers on the table (markers that are only nominally washable) and The Boy a chance to complain that he was starved and Middle a chance to ask if she couldn't just have a "BLT" anyway because she didn't want a burger:
"We don't have any L... lettuce," I said.
"That's okay," Middle said.
"No," I said, having thought it over. "You can't have a bacon and tomato sandwich for dinner. That's not right." Thereby enforcing one of the many unwritten eating rules I have.
We did finally eat, and it was delicious, even if "Fruit Salad" ended up just being "watermelon."
The Measurement of How Long It Took To Go Up The Hill:
Real Time: 15 minutes.
Real-Er Time: 1 hour.
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