Marshmallows for the homeless

The homeless around town are pretty lucky today. Lucky that I have a great husband and sister, that is. I slept in this morning (no surprise), and woke up to find a large note with the ominous phrase “Don't Forget: 3 Lunches Before 10:00a.m.” Such a nice husband. Then I saw the clock. Yikes, yikes, yikes. I can’t confess the exact minute I got up, because I will embarrass myself, and someone will probably be justified in calling the Social Services on me. But suffice it to say I needed to get cracking on those lunches.

Then came yikes number two. No bread for sandwiches. Never fear, that is what great backyard sisters are for. Tied to the cupboard, and dangling down, so as to not be overlooked, was a bag of bread from my sister with exactly 7 pieces of bread. [We were talking about my assignment last night.] I knew I was inspired to sign up for 3, not 4 lunches. Bless my great family members. And bless the homeless.

I rounded up Sage and explained that we were going to make meals for some people who didn’t have houses to live in. She was anxious to help after my civic-duty-pep-talk, or maybe because I had mentioned that we needed to include a dessert in each lunch, and she was hoping to be the taste tester.

The instructions that came with my brown bags read: “Each lunch should include a meat sandwich, chips or crackers, a fruit or vegetable, and a dessert.” Wowee. That’s a pretty gourmet lunch, by my standards. Had I just packed three lunches that were typical for our family, the homeless would have all been eating big bowls of Kraft mac’n’cheese, topped off with a half a can of mandarin oranges. (I’m sure they have a drinking fountain at the Homeless Shelter, right?)

I scoured the cupboards for desserts. I found two old (less desirable…obviously because they are uneaten) candy bars and a Fruit by the Foot. Feeling a little guilty for the strange assortment of desserts, I got out our bag of colored mini marshmallows and poured a handful into each lunch sack. If my kids like them, maybe the homeless will too.

Next up: chips or crackers. More scouring of the cupboards. It came down to the two options: Goldfish crackers or tortilla chips. I couldn’t really picture three grown men sitting around snacking on baggies of mini colored fish crackers, so I gave Sage three sandwich bags and asked her to fill them with tortilla chips. This worked well until Eliza came along wanting to “help,” and accidentally sat on the bag of chips. Sorry, homeless.

By this time I began to get a tiny complex about the lunches I was making. In my mental eye, I could see my three homeless guys sitting down next to three other homeless guys that had better lunch luck. My guys pull out a home-wrapped bag of tortilla chips while their buddies across the table unveil individually wrapped bags of Doritos. Hoping for better luck, mine reach in and pull out pre-sliced apples while their counterparts remove Asian pears wrapped in those Styrofoam wrappers. My guys discover the bag of mini marshmallows and stare with confusion while their counterparts snack on homemade, frosted cupcakes with sprinkles, or maybe individually packaged Krispy Kreme doughnuts. My guys throw their lunches down in shame while the happy eaters are sharing high fives all around.

I have a quick breakdown. Does McDonalds sell coupons for value meals? I could just put one coupon in each bag and I would almost make it in time to drop them off…..Wait a second! I gave myself a mental slap in the face. These are meals for the homeless!!! If they don’t like the lunches, they can feed them to their dogs, or throw them out, or use them as a paperweight. What’s good enough for us has got to be good enough for them.

Feeling a little more confident, but still hoping to make it up to the three unfortunate homeless men I’d dreamed up, I got to work on some serious “meat sandwiches.” Ham, mayo, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes. These are looking great. I made half an extra sandwich, which I ate for my own breakfast/brunch. De-lish! And even better when washed down with a few colored marshmallows.

Now that it was three minutes past ten, I threw the kids in the bike trailer and pedaled off to drop off the lunches to a lady who collected them and drove them all to the Food and Care Coalition. When we got to her house, I took the lunches from Sage’s lap, and explained that I would run them in. Sage looked at me with a concerned and disapproving look and said, “They have a house, Mom.” Bless her heart; she thought somebody was trying to pull the wool over my eyes! I don’t know what she was expecting—that we would drop them off to a few men sitting on the side of the road? Or to that one guy that, year after year, wanders up and down University Avenue with his luggage?

Sage’s reaction made me realize that maybe it’s time for our family to volunteer at the Food and Care Coalition. With some good explanation before and discussion after, that could be a really meaningful visit, and a good chance to expose her to a socioeconomic group that we don’t often interact with.

And besides, then we could see what the homeless really think about sandwich bags of mini marshmallows.