After a long shower and a few minutes of primping in front of the mirror, I walk into the kitchen where Leta is having a snack. She stops chewing a tortilla chip and says with her mouth full of crumbs, “Mama, you look so beautiful!” I feel very proud of myself because that’s better than what I was going for, and what I was going for was just a tiny step up from what I normally look like, a beat-up Ford sedan that is missing its wheels and is sitting on cinder blocks in the front yard next to a deer made out of Christmas lights.
I would have been happy if she had told me that I didn’t look like I was about to eat her brains.
An hour later her father asks her if she’d like some lunch. She resists for several minutes until he mentions that he could fix her a burrito, and when she hears that particular selection she suddenly nods her head vigorously and runs to watch him put it into the microwave. When it is done he cuts it into several tiny pieces and sets it in the middle of the dining table. She can hardly contain her excitement, and after climbing up into the chair beside it she yells, “IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL!”
The bean and cheese burrito qualified for an all caps and italicized beautiful.
I should probably be more upset about the fact that I am not as good-looking as a bean and cheese burrito, but I just checked and I’m pretty sure that I am going to be really busy scratching my butt.