How I Learned I Love Ribs

I married young (19), so as a newlywed, some of my friends were still in high school, and I continued hanging out with them. 

(This is actually the first time I’ve really acknowledged this. There were a few years when I was first married when friendships were kind of strange to navigate. Then I started having kids, and that made things weird too. Wow. Future blog post forming… )

One of my high schooler friends was named Josh, and he happened to work with me. Josh had a crush on the same girl for a really long time, and he asked her to prom his senior year. My mom's house had a patio on the roof of the garage, and Josh thought it would be really funny for him and his friends to tell their prom dates that they were going to "The Roof" for dinner and then eat on "the roof" at my mom's house, so he asked me if I might be able to work that out for him. 

I wasn't sure if this was a good idea or a bad idea... if it was funny or not funny... but my mom said they could have dinner on her roof, and I agreed to help Josh with the set up. I made a sign that said "Welcome to The Roof," and I had my friend Michelle come help me serve the prom kids their dinner. Josh ordered takeout from Chili's for everyone.* That's where I saw a bit of a red flag - he ordered Chili's baby back ribs for a bunch of girls in prom dresses. 

Michelle and I plated the food and served it to the group, and whatdoyouknow, those girls didn't eat the ribs. When we brought all of the plates back in the house, most of the girls’ ribs were just sitting there in piles. You could tell the girls had kind of poked and prodded at them, trying to make it look like they’d eaten something, but aside from a courtesy bite or two, the ribs were not eaten. I didn't blame them one bit! At that point in my life, even when I wasn't in a nice dress, I didn't like to eat anything by hand. I truly believed that I didn't like hamburgers or sandwiches or pizza, and I definitely wouldn't have eaten saucy ribs. 

After the group left, and we were cleaning up, I decided to take a random nibble on a rib. If nothing else, it would be fun to at least gnaw on the meat for a bit and sing, "Chiliiiiiiiii's baby back ribs!" to Michelle and see if she would sing back, "Bar.be.que sauce!" (I don't remember if that part happened, but I'd like to think it did). 

To my surprise, the ribs were delicious! For so many years, I’d avoided finger foods, and I didn’t know what I was missing. It was then that Michelle and I resigned ourselves to eating every last bite of the rejected ribs of the prom dates. 

There are a few lessons to take away here:

Lesson 1: Don’t serve ribs to your prom dates.

Lesson 2: But also… don’t be afraid of messy food. 

Lesson 3: Most importantly, don’t be afraid to eat other people’s discarded food.

Life experience has taught me to go for the eclair.

*Note that this was not a normal practice back then. You had to make special accommodations to get takeout from a sit-down restaurant, which is why everyone didn’t get to pick what they wanted.