Hamburger Helper and Syd Vicious

As most of you know I have five children, ranging from ten to twenty-one. Sydney,the middle child, is eighteen, a senior in high school, and a pretty good athlete. Her teammates sometimes refer to her as "Syd Vicious," but I never quite understood why. I do now.

Jen was doing a 12-hour shift at the hospital yesterday, so I was on dinner duty after work. She had laid out for me all the fixin's for Hamburger Helper: Cheeseburger Edition (HH:CE), at Sydney's request. But Syd wasn't home come dinner time. She had lacrosse practice, and none of the other kids wanted Hamburger Helper. We took a vote and decided on regular hamburgers instead. They came out nice. Taylor, the nineteen year old, made them, caving in the raw meat centers as per Martha Ray so that the burgers don't hump up in the middle. Nice touch. As we were all basking in the afterglow of our burgers, Syd pulled in, Starvin' like Marvin, as they say. Turns out she'd been telling her whole team about how she couldn't wait to get home from practice because hot HH:CE would be ready and waiting for her.

It wasn't pretty.

Levi (the boy, age 13)and I hid when we heard her coming because we knew what she was capable of. We scrunched down in the dark on the far side of my bed, over by the wall, hoping she wouldn't find us. We could hear her tearing the place up out there in the kitchen, yelling and punching the wall. We could see her shadow passing by in the hallway under the closed bedroom door, back and forth, hunting for me. Our luck finally ran out and the door flew open. I think the dog gave our position away, cringing with pathos from the bottom of the bed. I got up on my knees laughing, trying to explain, trying to find some lie that would work. It felt like I was in one of those hostage videos, on my knees begging for mercy as Syd, in her fuzzy green bathrobe, loomed over me:

"DAD! I JUST GOT FINISHED TELLING MY WHOLE TEAM THAT I COULDN'T WAIT TO GET HOME AND HAVE HAMBURGER HELPER! MOM TOLD YOU TO MAKE HAMBURGER HELPER! WHY DID YOU MAKE HAMBURGERS? I HATE YOU!!!" And then she stormed off to take a shower.

Sneaking back to the kitchen once it was safe, I asked Taylor what we should do. She's an Actuarial Science major at college, good with numbers, able to lay out the odds of my rehabilitation with Syd Vicious. She suggested we take the one and a half remaining hamburgers and chop them up, allowing us to make a modified HH:CE. "Do you think it will work?" "Yes dad, it will be fine. Let me handle it." Within ten minutes we were good to go. Syd had stormed into her room and slammed the door. Taylor, Levi, Madeline and I crept down to her door with a hot bowl of HH:CE, flung open the door, threw the bowl on the floor and slammed it behind us, like when you feed a lion at the zoo or something. We were laughing our rear ends off, of course, and then ran down to the kitchen.

"Syd Vicious." Yeah, I can see it now. It fits.