My Not-so-Secret Addiction

As a mom, you just have to every now and then put your foot down and be determined to act in a recklessly selfish manner.

For me this manifests itself in stopping off somewhere while I'm out doing errands and getting a cool drink and a snack and, for once, not asking anyone if they want anything. It's not that I want to be selfish or deny anyone a treat, but it's also heavenly and feels decadent that for a few minutes during my working day I can not worry about anybody but me -- no kids, no clients, no family, no constituents.

So, I do this and generally don't mention it to anyone and I drive down the road singing loudly with the radio while swilling down some exotic concoction from Sonic, always with real cherries included.

The other day it was cherry Dr. Pepper (with real cherries) and my latest obsession -- cheddar peppers. I was on my way to go get some photos of a house and picked up a snack along the way. I thought briefly of my hubby slaving away at the office while I'm driving down the road with a pepper in one hand and Sheryl Crow blasting from the radio. Not only did I not tell him I was stopping for cheddar peppers, but I'm listening to his CD, too.  Poor guy.

I didn't think much of it until later when I was back working and he took the car to go do his errands. My phone rang.  It was him.

"I see someone has been to Sonic for cheddar peppers..."

"Oh, well, you know there is a funny story about that. You see, I was on my way into town to pick up those papers and go get a picture of that house. I had to slow down where all the construction was going on because the traffic was jammed up around that time of the day. And there were these guys out there -- some hispanics, and they were with the oil and gas company, I think.  They had the orange vests on and there was a lot of those survey markers out there and I think they are probably doing some seismic testing for the gas company. Anyway, I had the windows down because it was such a nice day and since I was going slow it wouldn't blow my hair very much and suddenly I hear one of the guys yell, 'Arriba, arriba!' and all of a sudden some trash flew into the window, nearly hitting me and I almost ran over one of those orange construction cones. I looked down and it was a bag from Sonic. I think there was some other stuff, too, but all the other parts of the trash went all the way across the car and out the other window. I hope nobody thought it was me actually littering. Anyway, it was the craziest thing..."

There was a very long silence and finally Rob replied, "Well, I was going to tease you about not getting any for me, but after that I'm too tired."

Oh yeah... mission accomplished.