I love it when I can legitimately place a Seinfeld quote into my day

John had an appointment for a wedding consultation tonight, and we had a big, late lunch consisting of huge platters of Mexican food, so we had decided to wait until after his appointment was over and the kids were quietly in bed, and then split some take-out Pei Wei Pad Thai. For those of you who know me, you'll realize that this brilliant dinner solution also allowed me to get out of the nightly dinner time craziness that usually sends me into an obsessive, masochistic guilt trip wherein I berate myself for my pathetic parenting skills. Tonight, the kids ate at the kitchen table while we focused on tag-teaming to deal with their behavior, as opposed to our own futile attempts to eat in the same room during one of their meals. Paradise. Well, except for the part where Quinn screamed "MORE RICE MORE RICE MORERICEMORERICEMORERICE!" and spewed molten lava in his refusal to eat, literally, ONE GREEN BEAN before eating his second pan full of Lipton Side Dish, Broccoli & Cheddar Rice. But, I won that game of chicken with the trusty time-out. After that, he ate the cursed green bean. Oh yes, he did. And then I gave him a huge pile of that god-forsaken rice, spoon after spoon after spoon, until his plate overflowed with it. That'll show him. (Uh, but he ate it all.)

Anyway, after John's clients stayed an hour longer than we'd anticipated, he was finally able to get our dinner. Since I had to wait so long for it, I was a lot hungrier than I'd expected to be. I finished off my plate right after John had walked out of our room with the container (I'm a bum, and I was eating on our bed while watching TV, reading a magazine, and reading blogs). "Hmm," I thought, "I could use another few bites of those yummy seared noodles." I called for John. "Did you have any noodles left?" He paused for a second, then said, "there were a few. Are you still hungry?" I said nevermind, but about two minutes later he came back into the room holding the closed takeout container. He opened it and showed me the contents. There were a good five bites of perfectly seasoned pad thai noodles just waiting to complete my meal. I took the container from him. He turned around and walked toward the door.

"Wait a minute."

He stopped dead in his tracks.

"Was this in the trash?!!!"

His face went pale, his shoulders slumped. He had been so close to escaping. "The box was closed! And it was right on the top, for about three seconds!"

"SON OF A...!!! John! Adjacent to refuse IS REFUSE."