It was an ordinary day. I was dining with a friend. The menu read like a situation comedy: Liver Come Back to Me, Goldie Lox and the Three Eggs, Ike and Tina Tuna (a split and probably stale sandwich) and more.
We settled on a bit of caviar and chilled white wine. Quite luxurious we felt, though simple. I gave the order to our waiter.
“So what do you want as your main course?” he asked.
“This is our main course,” I answered.
“But that is just an appetizer. Is that all you’re going to eat?”
“That’s it, sir, and please bring us a few slices of thin pumpernickel with …”
“An appetizer comes with crackers and only crackers. Order the complete meal and you can get good bread like French, Rye, or Parker rolls and a lot of good stuff.” He was pleading.
“Do you not have pumpernickel bread?” I asked sweetly.
“Yes. But not with the dinner or the caviar appetizer.”
“Do you serve corn beef sandwiches?”
Déjà vu. I flashed to Jack Nicholson in “Five Easy Pieces.”
“Yes.”
“Are they served on pumpernickel bread if requested?”
“Yes, they are, but …” “So listen. Instead of putting the pumpernickel on a corned beef sandwich we do not want, bring us a few slices of pumpernickel hold the corned beef. Okay?”
“Okay, but I’ll have to charge you,” he said.
“Fine. With that we’d also like a chopped hard-boiled egg, thin slices of onion …”
“We don’t have hard boiled eggs.”
“Do you,” I asked in my Joan of Arc voice, “serve egg salads?”
“Yes,” he replied cautiously.
“Then there is a good chance you may have hard boiled eggs on the premises as that is what egg salads are made with. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Okay. But I still think the better deal would have been the dinner. All this will probably cost just as much.”
That depends on what you mean by cost, I thought.
Our food was served. My friend and I had an exquisite lunch and it did not cost as much as two complete meals. But that is not the point. We ate a la carte. We did not have to have the basket of assorted breads. Nor did we choose a salad with choice of Roquefort, oil and vinegar or creamy French dressing. We did not ingest the sinful dessert that would have ultimately landed on our butts. Oh, how virtuous we felt! We were not obliged to accept any coffee or crème de menthe (a part of the full meal). We ate only what we wanted and with much satisfaction. No more “I don’t need the calories but it is already paid for” guilt.
That’s when it happened, like a cartoon light bulb going on.
Not just another metaphor drifting through my mind and dissipating like cooked alcohol in wine, but a genuine “AHA” experience.
Eating a la carte. Working a la carte. Loving a la carte. Parallels sprang forth full-grown. For is it not true that we tend to accept life’s “complete dinners” for the one or two items that we really want while letting someone else put together the rest?
How often do we stay in a relationship that provides security, for example, or protection from the fear of loneliness but neglect or destroy so much else of what we need to sustain our very soul?
How frequently have we continued in careers that are draining and devoid of true fulfillment that precludes the “living our bliss” just because of the money?
Over and over we take the whole meal because we fail to see our full range of choices, just as we forget how much better we feel when we make those choices ourselves.
Women have historically made changes only after experiencing a major trauma. It seems to take a divorce, a death of a partner, a life threatening illness, or a betrayal of a sacred trust finally thrusts us into a re-evaluation of our lives, sometimes with less time left in that life than we had hoped. It is far better to ask one’s self this very minute and on a continuing basis:
