“Butter as the sauce? You don’t put any marinara on it? Or white wine and garlic? Alfredo?”
“Butter,” I tell him for the third time.
“Cheese?” he asks.
“Plain,” I tell him.
Thomas obviously thinks this is the most boring order in the world. “Do you like tomato sauce?”
“I like it on pizza.”
“And no cheese?” Yeah, he’s not impressed by my culinary prowess.
“I like extra cheese on pizza,” I tell him. “And before you say I eat like a kid, I don’t. I just really love buttery noodles.” For some reason, I feel the need to add, “Butter is one of my food groups.”
Thomas turns left on to Main Street. We’re only five blocks from my shop now. “Butter falls into the dairy food group,” he tells me.
I shake my head. “Butter is a separate group for me.”
Thomas slows down about a block before he reaches the next stop sign. “How many groups do you have?”
“Twelve,” I tell him.
“Finley, there are only five food groups.” He itemizes them: “Dairy, fruit, vegetables, grains, and protein. How do you get twelve out of that?”
While I want him to get to know me, I really wish we’d had more time together before I had to share this with him. Lifting one finger I tell him, “Butter, fruit, vegetables, brownies, meat, cheese, milk, pizza, Chinese food, bread, and chocolate.”
Thomas has been sitting at the stop sign for long enough that someone behind us honks. Lifting his foot off the brake, he gradually accelerates before pulling over to the side of the road and parking in front of Happy Snaps. Then he repeats, “There are only five food groups.”
“That’s like saying there are only seven continents,” I tell him.
Thomas rams the gear shift into park. “Thereareonly seven continents.”
Shaking my head, I ask, “What about all the islands out there?”
“They’re islands, not continents.”
“But don’t you think they feel bad not being included as continents?”
Thomas turns and stares at me with his mouth hanging open. “Islands aren’t sentient. They don’t have feelings. Plus, if you included all the islands as continents there would be thousands of them. You can’t have thousands of continents.”
He’s really stressing over this, so I throw him a bone and lie. “I was joking about the continents.”
“And the food groups?”
“Not joking about those. I feel like food groups should be individualized to the person. I have twelve food groups.”
“That’s not how it goes,” he says.
“You can have five food groups if you want. That’s totally your prerogative.”
“What about other grains?” he wants to know. “Like oatmeal or rice?”
“They fall under bread,” I tell him.
“Why not just lump them all together and call them grains then?” Poor Thomas, he’s taking this pretty hard.
“I eat more bread than I do oatmeal or rice, so I like to name that category after it. It’s only fair.”
