The Joy of Eating Dinner Early: A Personal Revelation
Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it.
A few weeks ago, I called my best friend Howard to chat on the phone. Howard and his wife just had their first kid, so I was checking in on the new parents, and on my spiritual nephew. I was gonna ask all of the usual questions. Is the baby sleeping well? Is the baby eating? Have you wanted to punch the baby yet because it wouldn’t stop screaming? But I never got a chance to go through my little rundown, because I’d called my man at the wrong time of day.
“I can’t talk right now,” he said. “We’re just sitting down to dinner.” I looked at the clock. It was 4:45 p.m. I laughed out loud. “Oh yeah,” I told him. “I remember being where you are right now.”
The Benefits of Early Dinner
When you have kids, one of the first things you lose is dinner. You also lose sleep, money, free time, and the ability to have sex. But the loss of dinner is somehow one of the more conspicuous personal sacrifices. Before kids, I would eat dinner at what I considered to be a normal time: somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. That’s a good time to eat dinner before you walk out the door to get shitfaced for the evening.
Then my wife delivered our first kid and the baby’s schedule became our own. We couldn’t eat dinner at the old time, because it fell smack dab in the middle of the bathing/feeding/burping/reading/putting to bed process, which could take anywhere from two hours to eight weeks. New parents have to steal time for themselves anywhere they can find it; it’s why every new dad is reading this column while hiding out on the toilet. New parents are also exhausted, all of the time. They require calories just to make it through the day, and those calories can’t wait until well after sundown.
A Personal Experience
A baby’s personal schedule is always a moving target, but my wife and I managed to find a consistent gap for dinner within it. It was right around 4:30-5:00 p.m. That’s when we would eat dinner, often with sunlight still blazing through the windows. I grew to enjoy it. Part of this was the inevitable Stockholm Syndrome that comes from being imprisoned by parental responsibilities. But I was also trying to lose weight at the time, and eating dinner early—without eating anything else the rest of the night—was a big help in shedding pounds.
Also, I hate NOT eating. I’m the kind of guy who treats happy hour as its own mealtime, so imagine my secret delight in getting to eat a full dinner, PLUS whatever leftover Annie’s shells and cheese the kid wouldn’t eat, at that time. Eventually, we established a set dinnertime of 5:30 p.m. and stuck to it, even when we had company over (my parents always thought we were weird to do this). After a few years, dinnertime migrated to 6:00, and then to 6:30 p.m, where it remains to this day. And it’ll stay at that time for the rest of my life, even after all of the kids have fled home.
NFL Games and Throwgasms
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
Bears at Packers: Every Sunday, I see Curt Menefee on my television. And every Sunday, I become more and more alarmed at the man’s posture. They cut to Menefee teasing the halftime show and he always looks like he’s got a wooden leg, plus six missing vertebrae. A stiff wind would turn this man’s skeleton into ash.
More Games and Throwgasms
Four Throwgasms
Cowboys at Lions: There’s now a remote, but existing, chance that the Cowboys make the playoffs, which means there’s also a chance that the NFC title game could end up being a Micah Parsons Bowl between Dallas and Green Bay.
Pregame Song and Lifehacks
“Countdown To Shutdown,” by The Hives! Yes, The Hives are still around, and reader Jason insists that they still very much rock:
This song kicks absolute ass. Something about these dudes attitudes and charisma makes their music just so energetic. Love it. Don’t know if you’ve used it yet in a Jamboroo, but here it is.
