When my daughter was seven years old, she and my husband went to Florida to stay at my in-laws for a week. It was not a good visit. My in-laws had no interest in varying their routine and my daughter was not comfortable in their house and had no idea how to occupy herself. My dear husband was clueless.

Jamie called me many times a day in distress. Food was the main problem. There was never enough or there was food she was not familiar with. One conversation went like this:

“Mom, we’re having something disgusting for dinner. Do I have to eat it?”

“What is it?” (My MIL is an old-school hard-core Italian cook. I’m thinking tripe or pig’s knuckles)

“I don’t know but it’s kinda white with bumps all over it and it’s the grossest thing I have ever seen”

“Put your father on”

“What’s up?” He asks (clueless, as usual, that there is a crisis).

“Jamie is tramatized about the dinner food.”

“The chicken?”

“Chicken?”

“Yeah, Grandma’s making roasted chicken.”

“Put Jamie on.”

“So I don’t have to eat it, right Mom?”

“Jamie, it’s roasted chicken just like we eat all the time.”

“But your’s isn’t disgusting like that.”

“Honey, mom buys it already cooked from the deli. Grandma is going to cook it herself.”

“Yuck, that’s what it looks like before they cook it? I’m never eating chicken again.”