A Tale of Two Snacks

I swear I have a split personality. There’s this side of me that cares way too much and another side of me that doesn’t seem to care at all. About anything. I only need to tell you one story to show you what I mean. It goes like this….

I was supposed to bring a snack to C&Ts third-to-last soccer game of the year and that day, for whatever reason, the side of me that cares too little was in charge. I’ll call her Linda1 (because I’m clever like that).

Linda1 dropped the boys off for warmup, sang along with the radio on her way to the grocery store, then sauntered up and down the aisles sipping a skinny frappuccino and half-heartedly looking for a snack. While she was checking out the fat content in Blue Bell ice cream, she glanced at her watch (thankfully) and saw that the game had already started. Linda1 was not fussed about this detail. Nonchalant, she grabbed neon Poptarts, raisins and sports drinks of unnatural colors. While unquestionably odd, the snack was not without reason: she picked Poptarts because she never buys Poptarts so figured C&T would consider them a treat. She bought raisins because she decided that they were a close substitute for the Sports Beans that Clyde requested but this store didn’t carry (despite his claims to the contrary). And she bought the sports drink because, well you know, it’s sporty.

At the game, Clyde was disappointed, doubly so because he told all of his teammates that his mom was bringing Sports Beans. Despite the coach’s heroic efforts to tout the raisins as “nature’s sports beans,” the team members groaned. Some of them ate the raisins despite the letdown but many of the boys passed. More than one mom was visibly disgusted by the Poptarts; they aren’t exactly healthy. The only snack item that was acceptable was the sports drink. Fail.

Enter Linda2. If Linda2 had been in charge at the grocery store, this never would have happened. (I know. I’ve seen Linda2 at work. She would have taken something like orange slices, health bars and Trader Joe’s 100% juice boxes.) After Linda2 fully internalized the weight of the incident, she spent an entire week stewing about the shamefully poor snack choice. “What was I thinking? Clyde doesn’t even like raisins! And Poptarts? Why?” She lamented aloud to Jay and to any friend kind enough to listen. She brought up the topic so many times with BigG that he finally threw back his head and said, “The snack thing again? Seriously?”

Finally, after suffering through literally days of relentless anxiety imposed by Linda2, Linda1 fought to regain control. Her voice bubbled up from the depths of the body housing the two warring natures: “It’s a snack,” she said, exasperated. “A SNACK! Let it go already!”

You know, I kind of like Linda1. Sometimes I wish she’d kick that other worrisome witch right out of the house!