Saturday, December 01, 2007

I Starved My Children

One of the great things about having two teenagers is the freedom to go out without getting a babysitter. Last night Todd and I had a swanky little soiree at the Philadelphia Art Museum to see the Renoir Exhibit with his company, so I ordered a pizza for delivery for the kids and we left.

As we were driving into Philadelphia with our friends, Stan and Betsy, Todd's phone rang. It was Taylor. Apparently our new Pizza Hut does not accept checks. Who knew? I'd written hundreds of dollars worth of checks to Pizza Hut in Arkansas over the years. I figured since it's a chain the policy would be the same. Obviously not.

Between the two kids they had something like $7.00 so the guy left with the pizza. When Taylor called he was most unhappy, especially when I told him there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it and they'd just have to find something to eat at home. "We don't even have any bread," he whined. Okay. So that was true. But we did have frozen stuff like chicken tenders and meatballs and Weight Watchers entrees (which are pretty darned good).

After we hung up they scavenged the house, looking for enough money to buy a pizza. Katie had a stash of quarters and Taylor managed to find a few more dollars. They ended up with about $20.00 cash. I'm not sure if it was the humiliation or what, but they called another pizza place to deliver a pizza. The guy took their order, the address and told them it would be 45 minutes and approximately $15.00. Everything was looking great.

Thirty minutes later or so the phone rang. It was the pizza place they called. "Where do you live?" Taylor gave him the address again and explained where the neighborhood is. The guy put him on hold for a while, then came back and said, "We don't deliver there."

By this time my laid back boy was over the top frustrated and just gave up. He ended up having a Fiber One bar and an apple for dinner. When he told us that I blurted out, "Holy crap!," which then made me laugh because, well, that's a lotta fiber! He should be as clean as a whistle by now.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, we went through the exhibit - which I thought was fabulous - then found a table on the balcony overlooking the jazz band and had a glass of wine. We'd met up with another couple so there were six of us there, trying to have a conversation and yelling over the band. Marble does not lend itself to good acoustics.

The menu was less than thrilling so we decided to ditch the museum and go to London Grill, a hip little eatery in the trendy Fairmount section of Philly. Our party kept growing as we snagged a young man who had been through the exhibit and didn't want to wait for the company bus he had ridden in on. It was a miracle we were able to get a table for seven at 7:30 or 8:00 on a Friday night, but we were seated almost immediately.

Dinner was good, the company was great and the entire evening was delightful. At least for Todd and me. I almost felt guilty for enjoying our dinner when I knew the kids were at home scrounging up whatever they could find. Almost.

Can anybody guess what we're having for dinner tonight??

Labels: food, friends, fun, kids

Mused by Jenster :: 11:20 AM :: 16 People musing:

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