Running son deconstructs a salad.

In this, his eighteenth year, my son has decided to pay attention to what he eats. His coaches are coaching his meals now. No fries. No soda. Protein two nights before a race, carbs the night before. This has resulted in phone calls like this:

Son: Mom, is a potato a carb?

Mom: Yes.

Son: Okay, that's what I'm going to eat. [click]

Tonight, a protein night, we ran up to Wendy's (where else?) for a number 6 (spicy chicken sandwich) combo, but with a potato in the french fry slot and a lemonade in the soda slot. Lettuce only on the sandwich. No chives (I swear he said "hives," but he was adamant that he didn't), no sour cream, cheese but not cheese sauce on the potato. But alas! they had no baked potatoes left.

"What's the side salad like?" he asked me, the all-knowing of salads, I guess.

"I don't know, it's good, I guess, just plain," said I, fount of salad wisdom.

So that's what he ordered. When we got it home, he was pleased to see that all the extras--shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices--were "all laid out," the better to remove them. "Who wants the tomatoes and cucumbers?" he hollered. Both the historian and I demurred, he from another room; then, almost simultaneously, we both said, "but don't throw them away." Waste not, want not, particularly when it comes to your salad vegetables.

"Who knew this salad was so huge," he said, choking it down. It goes down a little easier if you lube it up with some ranch.

"That salad is tiny," I said.

"But it's deep," he said. With only a little of the lettuce debris left in the shallow, shallow black plastic dish, he said, "My coaches are going to be so proud of me for eating a salad. I'm gonna tell Coach White in second period."