No Free Lunch

Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote but the retreat wore me out and I spent all day yesterday returning calls and last night I was still trying to get rested up from the Retreat. But I am back now. The Retreat was OK, good food and a chance to mingle with the Council. There seemed to be the mandatory “Ice breaker” exercise. The touchy feeliee stuff that is supposed to make the staff feel more comfortable with each other and sharing for the rest of there treat. The Icebreaker used on this retreat was “My most Embarrassing moment” Immediately I am having to filter my most intimate moments which many could very well qualify as most embarrassing , filtering out incidents involving bodily functions, clothing malfunctions or social relationships. Finally the wheel of just “embarrassing moments” came to rest on an event of one of the Kid Days adventures.

For new readers Kid Day was Saturday. Saturdays, of course, was the days I would zoom over to where my kids were living and pick them up in what ever “beater” I was driving and go out for the day. For further Kid Day explanations do a “kid Day” search of this blog.

So I being a divorced dad working for a private-non-profit, with bills . child support and what ever I was cheap—I would like to say poor but in reality dealing with the harsh reality of truth I think I was cheap thinking I was poor and always careful. My kids were young, Mark being about 10, Shelly eight maybe even younger and the to boys way young. Charlie the youngest was usually on my lap as we cruised the city. RC Wiley was one of the usually stops since they always had free hotdogs and soft drinks we did not hit them every atleast once a month. But one of the weekly “hits” a grocery chain in the area called Smiths. Smiths was a food chain which was morphing itself into the “Super-Store “ mode. There were three of their “super” stores scattered at the points of the compass round the valley, one in Kearns about 4500 south and 5300 West, 4500 South and 900 East and up town at 900 East and 900 South. Each market had a deli and each deli offered free samples: usually an unattended meat and cheese tray for customers to “sample” the deli’s wares. We would start at the Kern’s Smiths on the Westside, grab the samples there then move to the East Side an then the Downtown store. James are Charlie would stand on my lap and spear the delectables. I really did not think too much of this behavior, it was open to the public, and we were public, and was one way to feed the fam. Well, one day as were grazing on the sample trays I heard a voice from way back in the meat department say, “Hey, here’s that guy who brings all his kids in every Saturday and empties out sample tray. Then it hit me…I was this cartoon character, dragging his kids round eating the “free” food. I was embarrassed not only for myself but especially for my kids. I herded the kids out of the market into the car and probably down to McDonalds for purchased lunch and think that day may well have been the end out our “Samples” days. There is no free lunch.