“Dad, what’s in my lunch pail, today?” 
We’re 5 minutes into the half-hour walk to his day camp. I glance at the time…8:12 am.
“We just finished breakfast.”
“Yeah, but I’m hungry. Sorry.”
“So, we’ll stop and pick up a fresh croissant at the bakery. You can munch it on the way.”
“It’s okay, dad.”
“I thought you were hungry.”
“Yeah, but more like curious hungry than really really hungry, in the belly hungry, you know.”
Ah-ha! Distinguishing between desire and need, pleasure and satisfaction, nutrition and fat salty sweet snacks, sex and love.
“Yeah, so what’s in my lunch?”
Erotic vs pornographic, anticipation vs blue balls, snorkeling vs scuba diving….
“Dad?”
“Noah!”
“My lunch pail?”
“Oh, sorry.”
Moment of fear. Will he approve? Will he react with a vintage ‘awwwww-unh’ to rend the last shreds of my tattered nutritional imagination?
“Uh…cheese cut in sticks, salami sliced thin, baby carrots, fresh bread, apple sauce in a tube and a juice box.”
“No granola bars?”
“Uh, no.”
“Ouf, thank god. I hate granola bars.”
Unfortunately. They come in such a variety of tastes, sizes, crunchiness, chewiness, healthiness, saltiness, sweetness. A veritable cornucopia of possibilities for the idea-bereft lunch maker that I am.
“They suck. And they’re all like rectangular like. Sucks.”
Count on my kid to object to the one thing, the only thing, that they have in common.
“They’re called bars, Noah.”
“Well, you know that’s not very, I don’t know, uhn, cool. I mean why aren’t they like Granola Pyramids. Now that would be something, like, you know…”
“Hard to pack, harder to put on shelves.”
“No, Not if you like put them in a box. And look dad, yeah, like you could fit them together like a puzzle, you know? Upside down, right side up, upside down….”
69..69…96…969…66…99…696… .
“You see, dad?”
“Uh-huh.”
I see. I see.
“But the important thing is their tastiness, not their shape, Noah.”
“Shape is important dad. Look how I hate, uh, yogurt, yeah. I can’t stand the stuff. But give it to me in a tube and I love it.”
Must admit. He’s got a point. A tube top and short summer skirt and even plain, white yogurt is appetizing. And once you start eating…
“You know, Noah, Nonno (grandpa) used to say that you would even eat rocks if you were hungry.”
“That makes no sense dad. Rocks would kill you.”
Oh, my too concrete kid! Amazing how realistic he is with my flights of fancy.
“It’s to illustrate a point.”
“I know. It’s just like, you know… lame.”
He stops suddenly.
“Look dad.”
He points to the ground. A very yellow, very hairy caterpillar is running across the path. I say running because it’s moving fast. Not that I see it’s legs.
“Wow, I’ve never ever seen one move so fast.” He chuckles. “Imagine dad, maybe he’s got like roller blades under all that hair. Yeah. Like a hundred roller blades because caterpillars have a hundred legs.”
How easy it would be to exact my revenge…lame, roller blades on a caterpillar, pffff, makes no sense, etc.
“Good one, Noah. And it’s going to the skate park where they have ramps and stairs and acrobatic stuff.”
He giggles. “Yeah.”
I much prefer entering into the other’s pleasure and finding my own, than resisting. Who cares if it’s not reciprocated. I’m responsible for my own pleasure.
Some women would profit from taking the same position (nudge nudge wink wink) …get a GPS, go for your orgasm, don’t wait for a man, any man, including me to bring you there. Just take me along for the ride… I’m a good copilot.
“Dad, we saw a really cool caterpillar, yesterday, yeah, in the woods when we went Geo-Caching, yeah, you know, with the GPS tracking and all that. Though the treasure we were looking for was lame. Just candies bags, you know.”
Ah! Candy!
“I agree. Lame.”
There’s pleasure in bitching, too.