Decisions, Decisions

Life really is a lot like a cartoon. We have all seen the little red devil squatting on one shoulder while a white angel hovers over the other. It is the classic struggle between good and evil that lives within each of us.

As a child we usually give in to the devil without even glancing at the angel. As we age, more thought goes in to the decsion-making process and we learn new ways of coping with the devil on our shoulder, and given even more time, we learn to actually focus on the angel. Unfortunately, that does not mean the devil doesn’t still try to make an appearance now and then.

For the last several months, my wife and I have been dealing with one stressful situation after another and, as a result, have gotten lazy about cooking. Quite often, the simple solution has been to grab some kind of take-out dinner or to head out to a restaurant. Unfortunately, this type of lifestyle can’t continue indefinitely as the cost tends to add up.

Yesterday had been a busy day of cleaning up the post-Christmas mess that was consuming our house. The tree was taken down and all the pine needles vacuumed up. The lights were removed from the front of the house and all the decoration were returned to their boxes. In addition to all of that, four hungry children was fed. Four dirty children were bathed and the countless messes they all made throughout the day were tidied up. As the last of the boxes was being closed up, the little devil found a perch on my wife’s shoulder and the ugly urge to head out to dinner struck.

“What do you want for dinner?” she asked.

“I don’t really care,” I replied as I continued taking care of the task at hand. Thinking the discussion was over, I assumed she would fix something, but ten minutes later, the question returned.

“You never told me what you wanted,” she said.

“That’s because I don’t really have a preference,” I replied.

“If you were making dinner, what would you make?” she persisted.

“What do we have in the refrigerator?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Why don’t you take a look?”

“It sounds to me like you are trying to get me to take care of dinner. And you know that when daddy cooks we just end up going out,” I told her.

“I know. It’s a bad decision. That’s why I want you to make it,” she replied. And there it was, the little devil hopped right off of her shoulder and onto mine.

“Let me finish putting this stuff away,” I said, “then we will decide.” Now the little devil was on hold, living in limbo. He was still there, but he had no control for the moment. I busied myself taking care of the last of the Christmas decor and pondered the dinner options. I knew my wife was right, going out was a bad idea. I also knew that, as a minor neat freak, the last thing I wanted after a day of cleaning was a messy kitchen. Maybe we could just get something cheap. I could even drink water. After all, it’s the soda where all the profit is anyway.

The debate raged in my head as I packed. A few minutes later, I re-emerged to find my decide-aphobic wife on the phone. “Who is that,” I mouthed to her quietly.

“My mom,” she replied. I quickly realized what she was up to. “Oh, just trying to decide what to do for dinner,” she said to the phone. After a short pause, she again spoke to the phone. “I guess we could do that if you really want us to.”

“You are so conniving,” I whispered to her.

“So we’ll be there in about a half hour,” she said before hanging up.

And thus the devil that had been bouncing from shoulder to shoulder fell off and landed on the floor. I think one of the kids stepped on him as we all marched out to the car to go to grandma’s house for dinner, but I am sure that he will be back someday soon.