Emergency Dinner

For weeks now, my dear husband has been working so many hours that the company has actually been bringing dinner in to the office for him and some others.

This afternoon I got a call, that he was coming home for dinner tonight! Terrific! But oh, I've been putting together "whatever" for the kids and me...and you know, I just couldn't have macaroni and cheese on Mardi Gras, anyway. However, I'd already planned to go to the mall to get a battery for Peter's talking watch, and to spend my Penney's gift card. I was looking at two challenges: I didn't have the food to make a great dinner, and I didn't have the time to do it in. So when Peter suggested I get chicken from the grocery store deli, it sounded good to me.

But when I finished at the mall and got to the grocery store, I didn't see any cooked chicken. So I headed over to the other grocery store down the street, where I saw a big sign, "Rotisserie Chicken available from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., guaranteed." I looked at the clock: 7:15. I looked at the display: enough chicken to feed one or two people.

On the way to the second store, I had passed a Subway, and that thought came back to me now. Ah, ha. Now that was an idea! I could do that at home. I looked at the bakery shelves and actually saw something labeled "Sub buns". I picked up a couple packs of store brand deli meats, and some Swiss cheese on sale. I had lettuce and condiments at home. It was expensive, as at-home dinners go, but it cost us about half what it would have cost to get the same amount of food at a sub sandwich restaurant...even before the drinks and chips that no one asked for, since we were at home.