I’ve been craving fajitas since Christmas Eve. I wanted to make tacos for Christmas dinner and Johnny said it was sacrilegious. I think we had chicken pot pie instead. Like, I’m totally sure Jesus would prefer tacos on his birthday, but whatever. 

Anyway, since he’s camping with his buddies this Saturday, I get whatever I want on Friday. Usually I make him take me to Maryville for Chili’s or Cheddars, and maybe peruse Hobby Lobby and the bookstore while we’re at it. I rarely push my luck for a movie, but it does come under consideration on occasions when I’m particularly vexed.

So it was decided early in the week that we would finally satisfy my fajita famine this Friday, unless an oyster craving took over my life between now and then. No, I’m not pregnant. I just like food. 

So after two full days worth of snow advisory warnings and twelve hours of on again/off again snow showers, we bundled up and set off, he in his camo, and me in my Lularoe. 

We take note of the specials and settle into our booth, making conversation with our favorite waitress (her kids are already hoping they won’t have to go to school Monday, nevermind the snow has yet to stick). We enjoy our drippy cheese dip. We make fun of the Yankees in the booth behind us.

Our tiny mousy waitress brings us our pitcher of frozen margaritas. With two glasses of ice. 

Johnny makes the best of the situation and goes ahead and pours himself a helping over the ice, making for “very extra cold margaritas” while I try to scoop my ice cubes out with a fork to transplant into my water glass and dirty napkin. Yes, it would have been easier to ask for extra glasses…or new glasses…but then what would I have to write about?

 We talk about work and this and that while we sip. Our cheesy rainbow fajitas come out quickly and we dig in. Everything is going great. The food is tasty, the margaritas are cold, I’m wearing some of my favorite leggings with my new Matilda Jane sweater, and my date is especially handsome. ☺ Thoughts of Polar Vortex 2017 are far from my Friday evening brain. 

Chatter around us dies down and soon there is only ourselves and one other couple left in the restaurant. We get up and push open the tinted front doors to be confronted by a snow covered parking lot. 

“Oh,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks on the sidewalk like it’s acid. “How long were we in there?”

Maybe an hour and a half, at the most, but East Tennessee had been transformed. The only thing that was on the road when we left were piles of salt. So much for that. So we thawed the windshield and set off down a slightly-more-treacherous-than-usual Chapman Highway. It looked worse going into Knoxville, more traffic seemed to be flowing on the southbound side. At least we didn’t have far to go. We eased off the highway into our turn.

“Look at our road,” Johnny murmured, like I wasn’t wide eyed and alternately gripping my seatbelt and door handle. There was one car in the distance and its tracks were almost covered already. It was around this time I began to despise Neil Young. (The current CD in the player. I never really liked him anyway, but now it’s by association as well). 

So here we are, almost home. The snowflakes made me feel like we were in the Starship Enterprise, as always. 

Obviously we made it, as I lived to tell about it, but next time I might pay more attention to the weather and less attention to my Mexican craving.