The Slice Canasta Will Rank Highest Soon Enough
A woman in Cheney left us a phone message reporting that intimate social congress now ranks below golf on the list of her husband’s favorite recreational pursuits.
And we couldn’t help but picture her confronting him with this state of affairs and hearing him say “Your point is…?”
Slice answers: “Grazing” appears to be the most popular name for it when nobody actually fixes dinner and everyone pretty much fends for themselves.
Other family code-phrases for it passed along by readers included “every man for himself,” “winging it,” “family buffet,” “feeding frenzy,” “too hot to live,” “snacking it out,” “cleaning the refrigerator,” “smorgasbord,” “foraging,” “pot luck,” “snatch, growl and grab,” “grab, root and grow,” “FYOF” (find your own food), “our summer routine,” “eat at Joe’s,” and “a picking dinner.”
Dan and Patt Scott call it “chasing your own rabbit.”
“Ever since the 50s, when I was a kid, my family has called the fendfor-yourself dinner ‘SKIP,’” wrote Diane Merton. “Some nights we’d ask mom what was for supper and she’d say ‘SKIP.’ That was our clue to make whatever we wanted, within reason. We loved it! Two generations later we still have ‘SKIP’ occasionally, and it’s still fun to fix whatever we want.”
Shari Alleman wrote that her family calls it “serve yourself and save.”
Shayla Rauch said her family just went ahead and called it “fend for yourself night.”
Tami Cook’s family calls it “search and rescue.”
In Nancy Stucker’s household, they refer to it as “pic ‘n’ git day.”
“Our family calls it ‘make your own night,’” wrote Lynda Stoeser. “This usually results in my teenage son having cereal, my teenage daughter having a pizza pocket, me having leftovers and my husband going without dinner.”
Bev Ewing said her husband knows he’s in charge of planning his dinner when she tells him “Tonight’s a yo-yo dinner.” That’s yo-yo, as in “you’re on your own.”
And DeAnna Wagner-Cunha wrote: “While growing up in Medical Lake, my dad, Bob Wagner, coined our household term of ‘K-K-K’ for ‘dinner’s on your own.’ When asked what that meant, my dad said, ‘catch as catch can.’ No one knows why he didn’t call it C-C-C. But from that point on, whenever he said ‘K-K-K’, my dad and my brother, Dan Wagner, would kind of hop around the kitchen with one arm and one leg emulating the letter ‘K’ with great excitement at the thought of ‘K-K-K.’ Strange, yes, but there’s not much to get excited about in Medical Lake.”
Today’s Slice question: What do you NOT miss about the Inland Northwest when you’re away?
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