What A Weird Trail To Go Down

My daughter’s friend invites her to join her and her family at their cabin for the weekend. [Daughter] is thrilled; we don’t have a cabin, and this one is REALLY nice.

She leaves mid-afternoon on Friday and gets back Sunday afternoon, whereupon we have this conversation.

Me: “How was your weekend?”

Daughter: “Fine. Uh, is there anything to eat?”

Me: “Sure, there are lots of leftovers in the fridge. But dinner’s going to be in just an hour—”

Daughter: “Oh, I’ll eat dinner; don’t worry. I have to have something now, though. I’m starving.”

She opens a container of leftovers and starts eating ravenously.

Me: “Wow, why are you so hungry?” *Laughs* “Didn’t they feed you?”

Daughter: “…”

Me: “They did feed you, right?”

Daughter: “Well, sort of. We got there around dinnertime on Friday, and there was a big bag of trail mix on the kitchen table. I was told to help myself, which sure, I did. I love trail mix. Seven o’clock came and went, though, and so did eight. I quietly asked my friend about dinner, thinking maybe I could help make it, or something. She pointed at the trail mix and said, ‘That’s dinner.’”

Me: “You’re kidding.”

Daughter: “It gets better. There was nothing for breakfast or lunch the next day, either. If I wasn’t worried about appearing rude, I would have taken off to the nearest town to get something else to eat. Plus, I didn’t have a car. We drove up in my friend’s car, so I would have had to borrow hers.”

Me: “All you got to eat all weekend was trail mix?”

Daughter: “Yup. And the weirdest thing is that my friend didn’t seem to think this was strange at all.”

To this day, I don’t get it. It wasn’t that the family lacked money, and if cooking was too much effort, my kid would have been happy with a bowl of cereal.