Future Enterprisers, Take Note

I have been enjoying a staycation this week. Hick took Genius and The Pony on a little vacation to the Badlands, through the valley of the shadow of Roosevelt's nose, (yes, I'm listening to Emmylou Harris right now), and up Pike's Peak. I've been there. I dislike vacation travel immensely. So we are all enjoying the best of both worlds right now.

They left Friday morning. I had an optometrist appointment at 2:30, so I fiddled around enjoying myself with a couple loads of laundry, a sink full of dishes, and some bill-paying. Lunch was debated amongst me, myself, and I. The office was 20 minutes away. I didn't want a big spread. But I didn't want to put off the meal until after the appointment. So I settled for a Banquet.

A sorrier name for a product you'll never see than Banquet. A banquet is an elaborate, sumptuous repast. Mine was neither sumptuous, nor elaborate. And repast is in question. I was not expecting Paula Deen cuisine. Or even Lean Cuisine. I am a bargain shopper, you see. Every now and then, on my jaunts to Save A Lot, I toss a couple of Banquets in the cart for Hick in case I have to stay after work, or for a rare occasion when I want to ingest a hot meal at the school lunch table. They only cost $0.88, you know. Which means they are horribly overpriced.

The one I grabbed was meant for Hick. I'm more of a Boneless BBQ Pork Rib kind of gal, whereas he's a Chicken Fried Steak kind of guy. He's lucky I saved him from this one. He might have had a flashback to the unfortunate Linguine with Clam Sauce debacle. I will not take the fall for that one. Hick picked it out for himself. So it's not my fault he was green for three days, and missed work, and thought he was the first man ever to have food poisoning. Who buys a TV dinner with clam sauce, for cryin' out loud? Apparently, nobody but Hick, because I haven't seen them for about twelve years now.

Anyway, I must report that my Chicken Fried Steak was as tasty as a wet piece of drywall that might have fallen off a sodden ceiling into a plastic tray compartment of bland white paste, right next to some see-through mashed potatoes and neon-yellow corn. Normally, I like the corn in Banquet frozen dinners, but on this day I saw no reason to consume a healthy vegetable when I was busy desiccating my internal tissues with a boatload of processed sodium.

This meal made the frozen Salisbury-steakcicle that Tom Cruise as Joel Goodson licked for his supper in Risky Business look good. But then, he had a glass of whiskey with a drop of Coke on the side. The Banquet people are crazy-smart to call their product Banquet. Some of them must have been Future Enterprisers. Instead of making a Memo-Minder, they made Grub in a Box, and named it Banquet.