A Memoir About Shared Bites, Shameless Mooching, and a Dessert Worth 10,000 Helpings
Setting: June 2025 — The summer we discovered Heaven on Earth in a pizookie pan.
It was our first time at BJ’s Brewhouse, and I was mostly there for the Pizookies. But before dessert, we had to do lunch.
Halfway through his chicken tenders, Holden slid his plate toward me. “Can I have your ranch? I ran out.” I handed it over, and soon he was asking for a bite of my sandwich, then a few of my fries — despite having plenty of his own.
When the Pizookie finally landed on our table, he took one bite and froze. “How’d they make this so good? This is better than anything I’ve had in my life.” Another spoonful: “Gordon Ramsay definitely made this.” A few bites later, between exaggerated “mm mm mm” noises, he declared, “So good and tasty.”
By the time the skillet was nearly empty, he sighed. He hadn’t just liked it. He had declared it worthy of the afterlife. “I wish I could keep eating it. In heaven, I’ll eat this 10,000 times.”
On the way home, we stopped at McDonald’s for a Happy Meal for Caleb and a sundae for my mom. Despite already eating his fries, and mine, he tried to mooch more from his brother. And even though he had just had ice cream on the Pizookie, he went after my mom’s sundae, too. Earlier, when I had snapped a photo of his empty plate and two drained ranch cups, he just grinned. “Aww. I’m cute.”
Cute — and apparently, still hungry in heaven.
This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.
No comments