Itty-Bitty-Almost-Mashed Potato Pieces

May 14, 2011

A funny thing happened tonight.  My wife was away from home as the speaker at a church retreat, and my son was at a school event.  So I ate dinner with my parents.  The main dish was baked potato with toppings.  There was also asparagus and a separate bowl for each of us with garden salad.

There were a number of delays getting things situated so that we might actually begin eating.  I was late getting home from work.  Then, my father damaged something that had to be repaired before we could proceed with the meal.  Then, when the food was ready but before we sat down, my mother carefully cut up my father's potato into itty-bitty-almost-mashed pieces so that the process of feeding him (or getting him to feed himself if we were so lucky) might go smoothly.  Finally, after the usual confusion of getting dad maneuvered into a chair and getting that chair positioned strategically relative to the food and to my mother, I headed around the table to my spot so that I might say the blessing.

Normally, my inclination is toward doing very short mealtime prayers.  On this occasion, however, given that my wife was at that very moment involved in a speaking engagement and that my son was out and about, I did a longer prayer.

As I was wrapping up the conversation with God, my ears began to detect some unconventional sounds, and I opened my eyes.  My prayer gave way to laughter as I spotted my father, spoon in hand, busily shoveling his itty-bitty-almost-mashed potato pieces into a heap on top of my mother's garden salad.