The ADHD Attorney

Posted By TheAttorney on August 16, 2009

About 25 years ago, my boyfriend and I were out of money and food, both at the same time.  We were college students.  Money was coming, but we didn’t have it yet. In the meantime, we had kids to feed. The kids were mine, and they were (about) 8- and 4- years old.

I saw a bag of potatoes in the corner of the cupboard that were starting to grow sprouts.  I looked in the refrigerator and saw some tortillas, curling at their edges.

I thought of the potatoes, and the tortillas, and then thought further about the abundance of oranges growing on trees at the junior college that I was attending.  The trees were slowly being excavated to make way for more buildings on the campus.   Seemed harmless.

“Let’s go pick oranges!” I exclaimed to the kids, after me and my boyfriend conspired together about how to get food.  The kids became excited about picking oranges.  Little did they know that I was indoctrinating them into a criminal lifestyle that they, fortunately, did not pursue.

We went to the college and picked the oranges, with me and my boyfriend discreetly keeping “look out.”

Then, we went to McDonalds and looted their napkins because what goes in, must come out, and we were out of toilet paper, too.

We went home and steamed the tortillas back into pliable submission, and then we diced and fried the potatoes and wrapped them up in the reconstituted tortillas.  Nothing, I have read, tastes better than hunger.

And the oranges were icing on the meager dinner, except that to us it was a feast, complimented by our appetites and our high spirits.

The next day, we were able to cash the student loan checks we had been expecting, the lack thereof which had forced us to loot the orange groves and steal napkins, but cashing the checks didn’t compare to the satisfaction of finding a way to feed the kids without money.

(More Monday Memories here.)

Categories: Miscellaneous, Personal stories
Tags: Monday Memories