All I Need Is This Burrito

Contrary to the first few paragraphs you’re about to read, this post is not really about our recent winter storm.  It’s about my daughter Lina’s love for school, and her stark raving joy when she got to return—the kind of excitement that makes you feel like you have to express it SOMEHOW, but there’s just no method grand enough, short of an airplane writing letters in the sky.

It’s also about a squishy toy burrito intended for use in hand-to-hand combat.

But we’ll start with the storm for context.

As adopted Texans, and Houstonians in particular, there are certain things we expect out of life.  Every year, we enjoy good barbecue, a month-long rodeo, and mild winters.  We have bad weather, sure, but it tends to loom from May through October.  We shelter through sweltering summer heat and erratic autumn storms.  We survived Hurricane Harvey in August of 2017 with a three-month-old baby.  But winter is the time for outdoor activities that are unbearable or unpredictable the rest of the year.  We eat outdoors, go to the park, and enjoy the zoo in nothing more than a light sweatshirt.  In the era of Covid-19, having those outdoor options in February has made life slightly more endurable.

A little over a week ago, when someone mentioned a winter storm rolling in, I said huh, checked a local weather blog, and considered covering our plants.  Cold weather threats often fizzle before arrival.  We already had some non-perishable foods and jugs of water on hand, in what we lovingly refer to as our zombie kit.  The night before the storm came, we wrapped our hosebibs, filled a bathtub, and let a faucet drip.  Even this preparation seemed a bit overkill for Houston, but after our prior experience (see: Hurricane Harvey) we figured it was better to be overprepared. 

As it turns out, we weren’t overprepared at all.  The temperature plummeted to the teens and ice and snow covered the roads.  Although we were one of the lucky ones who did NOT lose power—compared to 4 million-plus who did throughout the state of Texas—we were all stuck inside, keeping a nervous eye on the weather and our pipes, trying to keep the kids entertained.  Jack spent a few minutes shoveling snow into his dump truck, then cried because he refused to wear gloves and his hands were cold.  Lina cried because she wanted to go to school and/or ride in the truck.  We all cried because this was happening during a global pandemic, just a couple weeks after a prior Covid exposure and mandatory 14 day quarantine (again, no school, keeping kids entertained while working from home, etc. etc.).  After two days of Winter Storm Uri, we were all a bit miserable.

Then we lost water. 

Looking back, it’s been truly remarkable how Houston could take a bad situation and make it worse.  The day of snow and ice we had running water.  The next day the weather improved and our water dried up. More and more people lost power, even as the ice melted.  It all led to a general feeling of DEAR GOD, WHAT’S NEXT?  Let’s just call our situation Winter Storm Uridiculous.

But this blog post is not about the storm.  Not really.  Much has been said about what’s happened in Texas the past week, much of it bad, and I want, instead, to share a moment of levity.  So let’s move on to the burrito part.

After being cooped up in the house for too many days in a row, we were hoping Lina could return to school on Thursday.  Lina herself was dying to return.  All morning she pointed at the car and truck pictures in her PECS book, and I knew she was begging us, “GET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE!” We traded texts with school, and we were thrilled to hear their power had been restored, and they could start accepting kids as soon as the building warmed up.  Not wanting to pull a bait-and-switch, just in case another catastrophe struck, I didn’t dare share this news with Lina.  By around 9:30 a.m. she was watching cat videos on YouTube while I tried to get some work done.  The text flashed on my phone.  “Can you be here at 10?” 

“YES!” I type-yelled back, then turned to Lina.  “Let’s get your shoes on! We’re going to school!”

There are times when Lina does not respond to a parent speaking to her, to the point that we’ve had her hearing checked twice.  This was not one of those times.  Her head jerked up, and without a backwards glance she sprinted out of the office to get her shoes.  I hurried after her, trying to remember what to pack in her school bag, grabbing jackets and socks.  Was I forgetting anything?  I was probably forgetting something.  I better just grab everything.  Pull-ups?  Wipes?  Hair bows?  Why not.

“Okay, Lina, let’s go get in the car!”  Shoes successfully on her feet, I thought she would make a beeline for the door. 

But Lina did not.

Lina, in fact, was too excited to beeline. 

And Lina, like me, seemed convinced that she was forgetting something she really needed to bring with her to school. She scampered from the kitchen to the family room, giggling to herself, making a full lap around the couch.  Her eyes scanned the walls, lighting on the bookshelf.  Without a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed something and pointed at it vigorously.  “This!” she seemed to tell me.  “THIS!  WE MUST BRING THIS THING!”

I looked at what she could be so desperate to carry to school with her.

Are any of y’all familiar with the game Throw Throw Burrito?  If not, the title pretty much says it all.  It’s a game that involves players throwing squishy replicas of Mexican food at each other in madcap duels.  It was a gag gift for Ryan last Christmas.  Lina had briefly shown interest in carrying the burritos around and chewing on them – it was unclear if she thought they might be real, or whether she just liked the texture.  She then lost interest and hadn’t so much as touched them in over a month.  They sat on our bookshelf, largely unremarked.

Until Lina became so overjoyed to go to school that she literally didn’t know what to do with her excitement.  I MUST DO SOMETHING WITH MY HANDS! I MUST CARRY THINGS!  BURRITOS! YES!

And when she stood there, quivering with happiness, pointing at Throw Throw Burrito, I said sure kid, let’s put it in the car.  Satisfied, she was ready to go to school.

It reminded me very much of the scene in the Steve Martin movie, “The Jerk,” where Steve’s character grabs random objects while leaving his house, proclaiming, “All I need is this ashtray and that’s all I need! … And this lamp.”

Lina’s little heart was so full, she needed a squishy burrito to share it with.

I sincerely hope school interruptions are done for at least a couple weeks.  I also hope Texas gets it act together before the next storm.  But, most of all, I hope Lina maintains her love for school. 

And burritos.  Because that’s my girl.