Lucky Like That

The Wilds are eaters. And by that I mean we eat. The mere act of eating is elevated in my family to a true high art form.

We are not vacuum cleaners though. Or catfish. We don't just eat anything. We're fairly spoiled and we like good food. Not necessarily expensive food, but good food. And we can tell the difference. We're lucky like that.

Our week-long reunions are veritable bacchanalias of incredible food. Each night a different family cooks and it's always fabulous. Tapas one night, Mediterranean the next, Indian, authentic Mexican, it's a joy-fest of titanic proportions.

Great food stories and legends pervade my family's history. We've got a sixth sense about food. We can tell innately when good food is in the general area, and also have some inkling as to its directionality. There is a tingling, a disturbance in the "food-force" and our ears perk up and our tummies rumble when something food-ish is about to happen.

We're especially good at buffets. We always find ourselves ideally situated when the dinner bell rings, and our tables are almost always selected first to eat. We're lucky like that.

I remember a certain wedding in Antigua Guatemala, attended by the ex-president of that country, who was the bride's father. My luck was so good that night that when dinner was announced, I found myself ideally situated and ended up in line right after the bride and groom, but before the president. Brian was proud of me. It was inevitable that one of us would score that coup, because we're lucky like that.