There goes the neighborhood

I feel a little sick to my stomach right now. I'm sure that's partially because I just consumed my first fast food meal in well over a year. But I think the circumstances surrounding my meal are actually making me far more nauseous than the food itself.

In the three years I've been at home, I've never really mastered the whole lunch for myself thing. I'm not a big fan of deli meat, I'm not too into soup and I hate leftovers. I only like salads with tons of mix-ins and I'm too lazy to keep them all stocked in my house most of the time. So lunchtime is always a challenge for me. I end up eating a lot of frozen pizza or frozen gourmet type meals (expensive and probably not all that good for me), with an occasional bagel, bowl of chili or "acceptable" leftover (lasagna or quiche, mainly) thrown in to break up the monotony. I stock up on this crap every time I'm at the grocery store, mentally counting the number of lunchtimes I'm likely to encounter before I get back to the store to make sure I don't run short.

Today I ran short. I don't know if the long weekend did me in or what, but I had nothing in my house. (Actually, that's not true -- my cupboards and fridge all look full, which is the topic of another entry about my inability to throw things away -- but I seriously could not find a way to scrape together anything resembling a lunch.) We were trapped in the house all morning while workmen tried to repair my flooded and very stinky finished basement (also the topic of another entry), so I had no opportunity to restock earlier. And by the time the workmen left and I got the kids fed, it was nearly naptime and I couldn't see schlepping them into any stores just to find me a palatable lunch option. I was a hungry woman without a plan.

Then it hit me -- there's a Burger King with a drive-through just about a mile from here. And before I could regain my senses, I had heated up the car, tossed the kids in without coats or shoes and driven off to the Burger King drive-through in my fuzzy bedroom slippers. I figured I'd get myself a nice salad, but of course, one look at the big burger posters and I was a sunk woman. I drove home with a Whopper value meal beside me on the front seat and the voice of my conscience (who sounds suspiciously like Julia) ringing in my ear. "Why are we doing this?" "Do I smell french fries?" "Why don't I even have any shoes on?" "You know Evan's asleep back here, right?" "Can we go out without coats on all the time from now on?"

My plan worked beautifully and I arrived home, whisked both children into bed and consumed my entire Whopper value meal in record time. And now here I sit, a little nauseous, very tempted to hide the evidence of my foolish indulgence (from whom I don't know, since Paul will no doubt read about it here before he even gets home) and simply horrified at myself for sinking into what I assume must be the very bottom depths of stay-at-home-motherhood. This is it. It took me 3 years, 1 month and 13 days to hit rock bottom, but now here I am -- the stereotypical white trash mother taking her scantily clothed (and probably dirty) children out in the car to fetch a fast food meal. I can feel my thighs growing fatter as I type. And the worst part is, now that I know how easy this was, I know I'm going to be tempted to do it again.

I never even took my slippers off. Oh, the horror.