Cracker Barrel Clarity

Today dear friends, we are going to talk about the expectations of visions.  And not the constant visions we conjure up of our past or future - the seemingly endless "what if" possibilities moving faster than the Riverdancing Michael Flaherty in our heads.  Rather visions put out to us by the marketing masters of the world - the media, the brands, and sometimes our very own eyes on how something should appear.

You know the ones I'm talking about - the happy couple having a picnic with their two adorable children for the Smuckers Jelly ad where the kids don't have a smudge on their face or a dot of jelly on their whiter than white pants.  Or the couple lounging on the Empress deck of a posh cruise ship in a sequined ball gown and tux, every hair in place, truly, deeply, madly in love.  Or more specifically in today's case - the vision of a grilled cheese sandwich with 2 pickle eyes and a french fry smile as illustrated on the kids menu at Cracker Barrel.

A couple weeks ago my son and I while on a 13 hour road trip (each way... did I add that yet?) partook of our favorite road tripping perk - stopping at The Cracker Barrel.  The beauty of the Cracker Barrel is that their bathrooms are always clean, and their shop of everything holiday and whimsy makes us both squeal with excitement.  Gnome salt and pepper shakers - check.  Bright red Christmas vest with skiing snowmen and snowomen - check.  Stuffed animal furry raccoon that chases a battery operated rolling ball - check and now own it. 

So there we were, being led to our table high off our recent purchase of the furry raccoon chasing a ball, when I noticed it.  Every single table at the Cracker Barrel was filled with either the traditional family, or couples over 70 holding hands next to that damn pyramid game I suck at.   Somewhere in B.F.E. Kentucky it him me, my son and I did not even fit the typical patron vision for the freaking Cracker Barrel.

To help ease the technicolor / Norman Rockwell gone wrong vision being lived out in front of my eyes, I quickly ordered 2 biscuits.  Practically a cure all in my book.  My son declared he wanted to order the grilled cheese with the two pickle eyes and a french fry smile because it was smiling in the picture on his kids menu.  But he wanted corn instead of fries.  Yep - just 5 years old and he is picking food based on which item looked the happiest.  Kind of like what I was doing… surveying the restaurant to see which couple looked the happiest and then wishing I could just point and order a vision of love like that too.  

Within moments of the elderly server setting down our food my son screamed out loud "Mommy!!!  This doesn't look like the picture - it only has one pickle eye, and the picture had two eyes, and there is no smile, and the picture looked happy and mine doesn't…  There's no smile - only corn!  What happened to my sandwich picture?!?"  Panicked because my son had clearly blew the hearing aids off of everyone over 70's ears - I quickly replied something like "Honey Bee!  Say thank you to the nice server (we now owe $1000 to for ruining her hearing aids!)."  "Maybe yours is a pirate grilled cheese and only had one pickle eye and it didn't have a smile because you wanted corn instead of fries".  I grabbed my fork and cleverly made a kinda smile shape out of his corn.  Then I smiled a mirror image to his plate and cried out a big "Arrgggghhh Matey!"  Let's just say that went over like a ton of bricks.

Now he didn't cry or declare he wasn't going to eat his sandwich, which quite frankly shocked the hell out of me.  Instead he grabbed his menu, pointed angrily to the smiling grilled cheese, and said "See Mommy - this is what it was supposed to look like!"  And then I saw it - in his eyes - the look of sheer disappointment.  The look of all the visions going through his sweet little head of how the picture of the smiling grilled cheese was going to bring a smile to his face too, and had failed him.  And then I saw it - in my minds eyes - the visions going through my constantly spinning head of how the picture of me smiling holding hands at Cracker Barrel with my husband when we're 70 years old and still madly in love, had failed me.  Only I couldn't point my finger at the couples both sitting and staring at us now screaming "This is what it was supposed to look like!!!"

So as the now really deaf server asked if my son would care for something instead, before I could even do the embarrassed, no no no everything is perfect I swear speech, my son blurted out "It's okay Mommy... I'll eat the pirate grilled cheese instead."  And then he started half humming / half singing the theme song from Jake and the Neverland Pirates and pretending his triangle shaped grilled cheese was a boat and the corn kernels were cannon balls.  Wow - in less than a minute he had both embraced and celebrated the reality of the presented vision of his grilled cheese gone wrong. Instead of looking at what he should of had, he was embracing what he did have.  Wow - in more than three years I had not celebrated or embraced the reality of my true vision, of my marriage gone wrong.  Instead of looking at the vision of what I did have, I was looking at visions of what I thought I didn't have and what I thought I was missing….  When actually, I wasn't missing a damn thing.  How could life get any better than having lunch with a cute little blonde pirate at the Cracker Barrel??

Schooled by a 5 year old on how to let go of the manufactured vision in your head, and make the best out of reality.    Join me in changing the movie and visions in your head of what it is / was "supposed" to look like and celebrate what it "does" look like.  Because every vision can become a beautiful one with just a kernel of corn's insight.

- V 

(Of V and H)