This week has been an interesting culinary experiment at our place.

I usually do the grocery shopping on Tuesday mornings for the week. I look over the week’s menu, make up the shopping list, and run around trying to pick up everything we need while the older two kids are in school.

But this week, the Captain was home sick on Tuesday. He was so tired and sad that I just couldn’t bring myself to drag him to the Superstore.

By Wednesday morning, Gal Smiley had joined him on the couch. Sir Monkeypants and I weren’t feeling too good, either.

This morning, I felt like crap but since we way overdue for groceries, I dragged myself and Little Miss Sunshine into the van — thankfully the older two went back to school today.

Halfway to the grocery store, I remembered I was supposed to be taking the van in for an oil change. It hadn’t had one in more than nine months. Apparently that is bad, so oil change won out. The garage people were freewheeling with the tsk-tsks, let me tell you.

So now, this makes three days we’re overdue for grocery shopping. It might not sound like much, but since I moved to a menu system a couple of years ago, I only keep enough in the house for one week’s worth of meals. This has really cut down on our waste.

But it does interfere with our ability to survive in crisis situations. If only we had a concrete bunker downstairs filled with Spam!

It has certainly been interesting trying to forage for meals for five every evening. We’ve basically resorted to everyone having their own meal — whatever they want to eat that they can find in the cupboards. I’ve found a few things in the depths of the freezer to defrost, too — just scrape a way that freezer burn, kids! Our frozen veggie and canned fruit stock is quite dimished, as well, but at least we continue to survive.

I guess we could survive a nuclear winter, after all. For at least four days, anyway.

Tomorrow, we MUST get out to replenish the larder. In addition, due to the house-wide illness, the laundry is piling up (we missed Laundry Day Wednesday), toys are in every room of the house, books and magazines litter every piece of furniture, and blankets and pillows are scattered on the floor of every room.

Being sick is like having a vacation from housework; I finally give myself permission to just let it all go to hell and curl up the couch in front of the TV instead. It’s kind of a crappy vacation, though — like going away somewhere only to have the airline lose your luggage and face pouring rain every day.

I’ll take it, though.