There are four things a mom never gets: credit for what she does, enough rest, a hot meal, and time to herself. On the eve of an important morning for me, I decided I was going to try to get at least two of those things by picking up fast food for dinner so that I could eat and get in bed early. My intent often backfires.
Jack in the Box tacos sounded like a fantastic idea. They are inexpensive, fast, easy, and most importantly, no dishes. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks they are a great idea. Turns out they are popular fast food fare. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that Jack in the Box sells 554 million of its tacos each year. I know my family has made a large contribution to that sales number.
They are particularly appealing because when you’re coming home to a house full of pre-teen and teenage boys at dinnertime, you want a cheap and plentiful supply of food. With Jack in the Box tacos, you can walk in with a bag of 20 tacos, toss them onto the table, and watch as the boys devour them like locust converging on a tender crop of seedlings.
We try to convince ourselves that they aren’t all that bad by reasoning that the meat is most likely soy anyway. Though the company says it’s actually beef, if you’ve eaten the tacos, you can’t be sure. They are highly spiced and of a peculiar texture. We affectionately call them Mystery Meat tacos. We love them.
Apparently so do dogs. At least until 3 a.m. when the love they hold in their hearts for the tacos becomes a burn in the belly, as our dog, Penny Lane, recently discovered. The mystery was how she got the taco in the first place.
Penny is a pampered pet, and she takes full advantage of the perks that come with being a tiny dog that perpetually looks like a puppy. She doesn’t walk around the house—she prances. That is, when she actually walks and isn’t carried by my sons or their friends. Usually, Penny travels in the pocket of somebody’s hoodie, or perched on a shoulder like a 3-pound parrot. While the boys have the job of acting as her entertainment and transport, I’m responsible for fulfilling basic needs like food, water, and standing guard while she poops. She refuses to eat or poop unless I’m the one carrying out the duties. Everyone else equals fun.
Because of this, sometimes when it’s time for bed, she doesn’t want the fun to end. She’ll whine and cry in her crate until I’ve had enough and angrily tell her to go to bed.
Taco night was different though. She continued to wake me with her whining. Desperately trying to hang onto sleep so I could be fresh for my big day, I told her to stop crying, and then rolled over, not realizing how much time had passed. This cycle continued throughout the night, my tired mind not considering that maybe something was wrong. That is until the voice of reason woke up: My husband suggested I take her outside.
To be fair, he also suggested that maybe she had a spider in her tiny crate, or that she was battling a black mamba snake. So at 3 a.m. I dragged myself up and out of bed and tried to tackle the obvious while Ron investigated her crate for any signs of struggle.
That’s when he found the shredded taco wrapper in the back of her crate. The “aha” moment.
Now wide awake and with Penny securely snuggled back into her bed, the discussion turned to how she could sneak a taco into her bed in the first place.
“Did she pull it out of the trash?” Ron asked.
“Obviously she jumped up onto the table and stole it when no one was looking,” I said.
“Well that means nobody was watching her,” Ron said.
“But I had my eye on her all night. We were watching a movie and she was at my feet,” I protested.
We argued about the taco for the next hour.
About a freaking taco!
By 4:30 a.m. it hit me. I had left to pick up my son from practice, and because it was 9:30 p.m. and everyone else was asleep and Penny was wrapped in a ball on the carpet sleeping soundly, I thought she’d be OK until I got back. When I returned, she seemed to be in the same spot.
“That was it! That’s when she hid the taco in her bed. It was the only time she was unsupervised,” I said.
“Well see, it was your fault,” Ron replied.
With that he fell asleep. But I couldn’t. I started out that night only wanting some solid rest to prepare for the next day, but what I got was a few hours of interrupted sleep. Groggy and bleary-eyed, I remained awake, listening to the quiet in the house. Then my stomach began to rumble angrily with hunger. A taco sounded pretty good.
Shelly Cone has learned her lesson: Tacos are now kept under lock and key. Contact her through Interim Managing Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 19-26, 2017.
