Little Acorns

Take all your problems
And rip ‘em apart

Carry them off
In a shopping cart

And another thing you
Should’ve known from the start

The problems in hand
Are lighter than at heart

Collie was listening to the White Stripes, a little too loudly, reading the lyric sheet as he sang along.

Lillie was in the hallway, playing stuffed animals with our neighbor Holly.

Jason and I were cooking dinner.

Earlier, as Collie and Lillie read Pickles over Pittsburgh, Jason was inspired to cook chicken and dumplings. So now, as the chicken simmered in stock, he chopped celery as I chopped onions.

“Dad, you are a very good cook, so don’t take this the wrong way,” he ventured, “but if you were going to open a restaurant, you would need to know how to make more things.”

“Well, thank you for the compliment. I don’t plan to open a restaurant, but you are right: it would be good to know how to make more things if I were a professional chef.”

“Right! Like you make good fried chicken, and good burritos, and good hamburgers . . .”

“. . . and a killer Thanksgiving dinner, thank you very much.”

“Yes! And that barbecued chicken, the one you wrap in bacon, that’s very good. But a restaurant needs to have, like, seven pages on a menu, and you only have, like, four or five.”

“True. I wonder what I would like to learn to make? I don’t know how to cook Indian, that would be good to learn.”

“I like Indian, but we can go out for that. Is this enough celery?”

“Uh, yes. Toss it in the pot.”

“Okay.”

I gave him some carrots to chop. He focused on cutting them for a while. Then he mused, “I wonder what I will do when I am seventeen.”

“You mean, like Rachel?” His half sister Rachel is seventeen, and newly graduated from high school.

“Yeah. I think I would take off a year too. I mean, I’m also going to be seventeen when I finish high school, and that’s younger than most people in college.”

Rachel has decided to work and save money, at least for a semester.

I had lobbied for her to go directly into college, but she prefers to wait until she is eighteen. Besides, as she reminded me, I had taken some time after high school to save money and apply to better colleges.

Her mother’s family doesn’t have money, and with my divorce, I am struggling. It’s hard for me to argue that she should race into college with no financial backing.

“What would you do for a year?” I asked Jason. “Oh, and cut those carrots smaller. Remember, they have to go on your spoon.”

“Well, maybe I would cook. In a restaurant.”

“You do like to cook.”

“Yeah. And if you opened a restaurant, I could manage it.”

“But I’m not opening a restaurant. And I thought you wanted to cook?”

“Dad, you have to hire people to help you. You can’t do it all by yourself. You might be the cook, but someone has to hire people. That can be my job.”

Lillie was sneaking a small box of Cheerios to share with Holly. “When I am in college, I will be rich!” she said.

“I hope so!” I smiled at her. “Then you can give me money.”

“Only if you pay me back!”

“Lillie, no one has money in college,” Jason interjected. “You have to work all the time.”

“Here, cut some more carrots.” I said. “Those are ready for the pot.”

Later, Lillie helped us to form dumplings. She picked up dough in her freshly-washed hands, and rolled out marble-sized balls that Jason dropped into the broth.

“Dad, can I work in your restaurant too?” she asked.

I pointed a thumb at Jason.

“You’ll have to ask the boss.”

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