Homelessness, hunger, video gaming, raising kids

Crash Bandicoot And The Last 2 Potatoes

How I Got Through One Of My Worst Days

There were many things our kids didn’t get when they were growing up. Often it was a struggle just to keep food on the table.

But kids still have wish lists.

And on my son’s wish list, every year, was the latest Crash Bandicoot video game. We always tried to somehow make it happen.

The video gaming consoles changed over the years and that would then be #1 on his wish list. And the coolest new Crash game to go with it. It went from Nintendo to PlayStation to PS2 to Xbox.

Along the way, the one thing that always stayed the same was that he wanted the newest Crash Bandicoot game for whatever gaming system he was on.

And then 2007 and 2008 happened.

The recession showed up and the jobs dried up.

2007 and 2008 were horrible years for millions of Americans not just us.

During one of our lowest points, we were homeless. We were staying on many friend’s couches with our 2 kids and our 2 dogs.

Then after 6 months of unemployment my husband was offered a job by friends near Chicago working for daily cash installing windows. And best of all they were landlords of a newly vacant apartment they said we could pay week to week on. So we came up with enough money to get the apartment and moved 200 miles north, back to the burbs of Chicago.

I remember one of my worst days….

He was making $250 a week installing windows and we gave the landlord $200 a week for rent. I got a minimum-wage job as a lunchroom lady at my kid’s school but hadn’t gotten paid yet.

To say we were struggling is an understatement.

There was nothing to eat and my husband still wasn’t home with the car. The free food pantry closed.

Sometimes I could work for friends for cash doing an odd job around their house so I made some calls but this day no one needed anything.

I went into the building’s laundry room, away from my kids so I could have a good cry.

When I went back into the apartment I heard laughter coming from my son’s room.

In the middle of all this darkness I was feeling, that I thought was surrounding us all, there was Crash Bandicoot. The tried and true bringer of happiness for my children even when I couldn’t give it to them.

They are 11 months apart and often argue. But now they were sitting there laughing and elbowing each other, trying to make each other mess up their turn with not a care in the world.

I thought I’d give the cabinets and the fridge one last look, trying to find something for them to eat. Something to keep them in that room where happiness and laughter were being provided, courtesy of Crash Bandicoot. Once that was over they would come out and realize Mom wasn’t able to get to the free food pantry in time and there was nothing to eat.

I noticed in the back of the vegetable drawer there were two potatoes I didn’t realize we still had.

I turned on the oven and happily grabbed a cookie sheet. I went to the sink washed them off and sliced them up. I started humming a song and smiling, still listening to their laughter as I tried to dress up the potato slices with different spices that would somehow transform them into a meal.

I sprinkled them with steak seasonings, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper. I even put on a little cayenne pepper to give it an extra little spice. I put them in the oven and the house immediately started to fill with delicious smells.

I heard my kids talking amongst themselves, “Oooooo mom’s cooking something good for us out there!” It smelled like something so much better than it was.

I started thinking this wasn’t going to work. My bluff was going to be called. They were going to be so disappointed when they realized it wasn’t steak I was grilling but it was just two sliced potatoes.

When the slices were ready, I arranged them on two plates with a big glob of ketchup in the middle. I served it to them with a glass of water.

They were so excited they didn’t have to stop playing Crash and come to the table for a meal. Instead, mom was serving them a huge plate of snacks at dinner time! They thought this was the coolest day!

They decided to start a different Crash Bandicoot game and call it a party. They put in Crash Team Racing. They played in there for 2 hours until it was time for them to do their homework take a shower and get in bed.

My husband came home later that night tired and said he wasn’t hungry. He said they had fed all the workers lunch at the construction site. He probably was hungry again but he didn’t say anything because he knew I wasn’t able to get to the free food pantry with no car.

He is a proud man who has always worked his ass off, but still, there were times those years it didn’t even cover food. And now, only the roof over our head. I’m not complaining. I was happy to no longer be homeless, vowing to never ask for help again.

But we never went hungry when we were homeless for those 6 months because of the kindness of our family and friends and the warmth of their homes. Now we had our own apartment. Things were supposed to be better, not worse.

He asked about the kids and me. I saw the tiredness, or was it defeat in his eyes, so I lied and said we were all fed and they were sleeping. He was so tired he just took a shower and went to bed. Not wanting to question me, he probably couldn’t bear to hear the truth, knowing this was our new reality.

Later, as I stood there washing the dishes with my husband and children sleeping, with food in their bellies, my stomach growled and I smiled.

Do you know why?

Because I was focusing on what we had and not what we didn’t have. I somehow pulled today off.

• My kids didn’t go to bed hungry.
• They were enrolled in school now that we had a lease somewhere. That meant they would get free breakfast and lunch at school tomorrow.
• Crash Bandicoot kept them happy and laughing and unaware of my struggle to feed them.
• The free food pantry would be open tomorrow and I could eat then.

I promised myself I would never go hungry again and it was the last time I ever did.

Thanks to Crash Bandicoot and two potatoes the most important things were taken care of that night.

I never liked any video games except for Crash Bandicoot.

And now you know why.

Our children, Mike & Jen, are 30 and 31 now. I sent them the link to the story and they both remember it all, unfortunately. But their childhood memories are happy ones. Michael reminded me he even got a big tattoo last year because of the happy childhood memories. He plans to teach his son/my grandson how to play Crash soon.