Early for a Saturday afternoon grocery pick-up, Karry suggests a quick lunch. I offer Panera, among the few destinations one of us likes and the other at least tolerates. 

En route the big hat catches her eye, and in a spasm of poor decision making, she audibles. 

“What about Arby’s? You’re always talking about it.” 

This is true. I talk a lot about Arby’s. Even though it’s been years since I visited one. 

I don’t give her the opportunity to reconsider, and we almost screech tires into the parking lot. 

We. Are. Home. — my adolescent brain whispers. 

Note: I don’t keep my adolescent brain tucked away somewhere, like, in a box in the attic, next to my before-and-after middle school orthodontic molds. No, my adolescent brain has its mail delivered to my middle-age skull, much like a man-child still living at home with his parents. Incidentally, I don’t keep my before-and-after orthodontic molds in the attic, either. I keep them on my bookshelf that leads upstairs.

Karry makes me put them away every time we have company. 

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