The Lasagna Trenches

I had been in the trenches most of the afternoon. The lasagna trenches.

Three lasagnas sat on the counter. Their parts were mismatched and discombobulated, patiently waiting for completion. The curly edge of the long lasagna noodles reminded me a bit of a medical school story one of my guests had been telling me involving doctors examining intestines during surgery. I grimaced and continued my work. Noise swirled around me, blown in from the other room.

Thirteen kids were blowing in and out of the rooms in a swirl, like hurricane wind. They didn’t stand still. I was vastly outnumbered, so I stayed safe there in the kitchen, with my lasagnas.

“Mama! Mama!” The tot came charging in, clearly having a disagreement with a tot-cousin-counterpart. “She can wear them, but she can’t take them home!” My tot said in her firmest voice in reference to the fake pearls that were strung around her cousin’s neck. I assured her that the tot-cousin-counterpart was not a jewelry thief. The tot continued to watch her with sharp eyes.

I went back to my lasagna. The tomato sauce was a creamy looking red, filling up a stock pot halfway. The perfect amount of sauce, I mused as I stirred the pot.

The stench of creek mud drifted to me from the open back door. Three children came tromping in, black mud drying on their skin up to the knees, and squishing between their toes. “Look what we found!” A ten-year-old nephew flung his hand upward and in it was a perfectly ordinary looking stick, covered in mud that well matched his legs. I blinked at him. “It was at the end of the creek! We followed the creek all the way to the end and we found this stick!”

I wondered if all of the explorers of the world had brought home sticks and shouted at their family members about them. It would go something like this: “I discovered the North Pole! And look at this stick that was there!”

I congratulated him, and watched his enthusiastic feet leave black footprints all the way to the bathroom. I went back to my lasagnas. I smeared one layer of ricotta filling across those intestine noodles. The filling looked a bit like the bones of it. Or maybe the bone marrow.

I thought on that as I caught a glimpse of a few more of those thirteen children, of the teenaged variety, trotting through the back door. They wore bathing suits and towels like it was a hot day in July. I squinted at them headed toward the pool and contemplated the odds of hypothermia, then decided they’d survive. I mumbled “crazy kids” like a crotchety grandma.

Beautiful day for a touch of hypothermia.

Back to my lasagna. A bit of sauce, a sprinkle of cheese, and on to the next layer of intestines.

There was an explosion of voices from the dining room. A poor eleven-year-old was being ousted by his cousin peers for spilling a cup of water on top of their board game. There was the middle school variety of name calling, then the accusations, followed by a weak, painful sounding defense on his part. “I put the cup there,” I said from my place in the doorway. A hush fell over the room, and then suddenly the game restarted. No one questions lasagna woman.

Nerf bullets whizzed across the room. Stray bullets from the war raging on in the living room were flying in every direction. The creek explorers had emerged from the bathroom, semi clean, as reinforcements. I spotted a sheet of notebook paper with a surprisingly accurate drawing of my creek sitting on the counter. I squinted at it but decided I wasn’t that curious, and returned to the lasagnas. Another bit of bone marrow, then the next layer, and they were nearly done.

An hour and a half later three lasagnas were devastated by thirteen children and a handful of adults.

In other news, it turns out the tot was right—the tot-cousin-counterpart was a jewelry thief. I also discovered my phone had been commandeered by a couple of teenage girls that took selfies with tongues hanging out and faces pressed together. Their crazy expressions lit up my screen.

“Those crazy kids,” I said in my most crotchety grandma voice, smiling.