Signs You've Gotten Old

When we were in high school we'd often go to my friend Greg's house for lunch.  His house was the central gathering point for most of our misadventures as he had what we thought were the most permissive parents.  They knew, however, that we were going to get in all kinds of mischief, so they figured it was best if they had at least some level of visibility to us, and that would be maximized if we were at their house all the time.

As such, they stocked the freezer with El Charito frozen dinners (I think they got them in bulk for like $.50 a piece).  They were supposedly Mexican frozen dinners, but they were not good.  Being teenagers, however, we didn't care.  You could have covered a dead opossum in re-fried beans and we would have eaten it.

Anyway, when we were out of frozen dinners we would get creative and one of the staples we turned to was the cheese crisp.  You take a tortilla, cover it with shredded cheddar cheese, nuke it, put some hot sauce on it, slice it like a pizza, and take the slices and roll them from the outside edge toward the middle.  Fast, easy, and delicious.

Once Greg put his cheese crisp in the microwave and then ran across the kitchen and did his patented "I'm slalom skiing down the stairs" moves which turned into a "I'm just caught an edge and wiped out" move.  He tumbled down the short flight of stairs into the sunken family room and began rolling around , pulling his leg up to his chest and screaming "Oh, my ankle, ow, ow my ankle."  This went on for a few seconds, but then he remembered what was really important.  "Oh, my ankle, OW OW, my ankle!" then, pointing toward the kitchen, "Dude, turn off the microwave, my cheese crisp is burning." and then back to "Ow, my ankle!"

Of course he was fine because young boys tend to bounce, and we finished lunch and went back to school.

So, all of this flashed through my head tonight as I was making a cheese crisp for lack of anything better to make for dinner.  So I got out the basic materials; tortilla, and cheese.  A whole.  Grain.  Tortilla.  And fat.  Free.  Cheese.  A whole grain tortilla kinda tastes like the cardboard that supports a frozen pizza, only not as flavorful and much less chewable.  And fat free cheese doesn't melt quite like normal cheese does, which makes sense because it doesn't taste like normal cheese does.  So why do we have this crap in our fridge?  Because it's GOOD FOR YOU.  Soon I'll be drinking Metamucil and saying "Hey, the orange almost tastes good!"

It sucks getting old.