It was a Saturday in the summer. We arrived around 4 p.m. at my parents’ house on a lake about an hour from here, where my four granddaughters and my sister’s three grandchildren — all between the ages of 11 and 5 about then — were lined up like the Von Trapp children at roll call. We were having a huge several-day family gathering, easily 30 people at any given time.
They were waiting for me. I got out of the car and the kids swarmed, asking in chorus, “Will you take us to Dickie’s? PLEASE take us to Dickie’s.”
The oldest was clutching a sandwich bag with various dollar bills and change that they’d amassed over the summer by conning it out of adults for performing various services and chores and winning bets. Dickie’s — not its real name anymore — is a small store across the lake that stocks gas, ice, some groceries, T-shirts, ice cream, an amazing selection of candy and other miscellaneous items you might need when you’re away from towns with stores and big gas stations and places like that.
I initially turned them down. I’d been up since 6 a.m., having set up, worked and torn down at a farmers’ market only to run home and pack up for a couple of days, not to mention make sure I was remembering all of the food I’d promised to bring toward multiple days of meals. I wanted to park myself in the nearest lounge chair and stay there.
But apparently every other adult had refused them also. And I really do love taking them to Dickie’s — having them all to myself, and seeing them enjoy these infrequent opportunities when they’re all together in the same place at the same time (one of them lives in Switzerland), thick as thieves. So I said yes and they piled in my car.
Once there, they spent a fair amount of time perusing the shelves of candy. Each got an ice cream cone and they went out to the store’s porch as they always do to enjoy it. I supplemented their money to cover the balance.
After we got back, dinner was being prepared. A couple of the kids proceeded to sit down and get into their candy. One of the adults — not a direct parent — asked, “Aren’t they going to ruin their dinner?” My response: “What does it matter?”
Of course we don’t want kids devouring a bag of M&Ms or a big old cookie on a regular day a half hour before dinner, followed by early bedtime and school the next day. But in the chaos of a family gathering like this, where meals except for dinner are catch as catch can depending on who’s around at the time, what difference does it make if they have Hot Tamales or a hot dog?
There have been similar instances before and since and I have increasingly little patience for the it’s-too-close-to-dinner argument in situations like these. Maybe it’s looking at the world through my grandmother-colored glasses, but in the scheme of things, to me, on holidays and special occasions, who cares?
A few months ago we went to a hotel for the weekend, joining my daughter and her family because she and her husband had to attend a Saturday night wedding. We were there to watch the kids.
Just before bedtime on Friday night, one of the girls asked if they could have one of the homemade chocolate chip cookies I’d brought. I started to get it for her, then realized I should defer to the parents.
“It’s vacation,” her mom said. “Of course.”
Yup.
On another weekend since, we were with family again, discussing having a campfire around 4 in the afternoon. I told the kids that I had stuff to make s’mores. And then it came, “But not before dinner?”
The next time the dinner police feel the need to chime in, I just might indulge myself and bite a whole head off. Before dinner. I am sure it won’t ruin my appetite, bet it would taste really good and that I’d still have room for dessert.