Tonight Jon indulged me and instead of having to throw yet another frozen Costco dinner into the oven we drove to Noodles and Co. to secure an edible meal. When people ask me if I cook I say, yes, I do, but someone else does all the prep work for me.

I wanted to order something Leta might eat so I wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of making something she wouldn't eat anyway. We agreed that we would order Beef Stroganoff. On the menu it's listed as Mushroom Stroganoff and you have to ask for the meat separately. Leta digs the melty cheese and wiggly nature of the noodles which she can slurp and then swallow whole, a maneuver that when imitated by Jon makes me want to lock him outside in a dog run all night.

When we approached the cashier Jon said, "We'd like Beef Stroganoff..." and then he paused because we hadn't yet decided what else we were going to order to feed the other 80% of our family, my stomach. The cashier, a pimpled kid who looked like a 15-year-old extra from Napoleon Dynamite, seized the pause to regrettably inform us that they didn't carry beef.

"BEEF Stroganoff," Jon repeated because we have ordered this exact meal at least as many times as years this kid has been on Earth.

"We don't carry beef," he assured us. And then he explained, "We only carry shrimp, chicken, tofu, and steak."

THANK GOD I was holding Leta so I could pretend I was tickling her neck with my mouth when instead I was muffling my whooping laughter into the folds of her skin.

"Steak Stroganoff, then, Captain," Jon clarified.

When we sat down to wait for our take-out order I couldn't stop laughing, and Jon looked at me like, "We live here voluntarily, you know that, don't you?"