Surprise, party of two

“Wanna go out?”

For a second I floundered. As I stood in the kitchen, gazing absently into a refrigerator packed to its edges with leftovers wavering within a wide range of decrepitude, I looked at the boy who spoke those three words with a dubious expression.  

That is not how the last teenager of the household usually answers when I ask him what he’d like to eat for dinner. 

“You want to go out?”

I had heard him right, evidently, but my mind still wasn’t processing the information.

Usually, he shrugs in silence, or mutters under his breath that he’ll find something to eat when (or if) he gets hungry. The idea of leaving the house for food holds no cache. Then, maybe around midnight, he’ll make his way to the stove to grill a few sandwiches, leaving a pile of dishes in the sink, a precariously wrapped block of cheese in the fridge, and the lingering aroma of bacon for me to handle. 

I can tell from the smell of the air … even hours later … that whatever it was he made was made to perfection.

Sometimes, I’m not going to lie, I mind. 

Especially when I’ve already emptied the dishwasher, stowed the cleaned plates and wiped down all evidence of residual cookery from the countertops before bed. He might have just said what it was he’d prefer to eat instead of creating a midnight garden of good and evil while I slept. 

I also tend to become annoyed by his indecisiveness, which, yes, I realize, he also gets from me.

He may act annoyed; an emotion I accept without hurt feelings, understanding that his preference for food has always seemed incredibly personal. A quirk of nature he probably, if I am to be honest with myself, has acquired not through habit or laziness, but just from swimming around in my gene pool.

Although no one usually has to ask me twice about leaving the cooking to someone else.  Someone who doesn’t need to feed the first through fourth pancakes to the dog. Someone like my son.

Sometimes he seems like an alien, and other times it’s like looking in a mirror and seeing myself with a three-day stubble of beard.

But not today.

Today, as the kid stood in the doorway twirling the looped end of his car’s keys – the unsaid yet unmistakable sign that he is willing to drive – I did not mind. I wasn’t even annoyed.

 And even though we kicked around ideas of types of food and restaurants that might be open on a Monday: Googling, passing names and tastes back and forth until we agreed on a place, I had to admit feeling a little excited.

He’s had his license a few scant weeks, and yet I find myself surprised that I don’t have to cajole him out of bed or hound him not to be late. He’s already gone by the time I knock on his door. 

As I had hoped, he met the new responsibility with a new maturity.

And he didn’t mind sharing a meal in public with his old mom.

Unlike other surprises – say a dozen or more friends and family hiding in our darkened living room, ready to jump out when I turn the lights on – this was the type of unexpected invitation that was so spur of the moment that I couldn’t possibly raise concerns or my blood pressure. 

He just had a hankering for shrimp tacos.