Thinking Arby's

The first few weeks after bringing a baby home, those who come to meet the new addition looks them over and tells you who they think they resemble. Sometimes it’s generic, “He looks like you.” I think the best comparison I ever got was when my mom looked at Jude as an infant and told me, “He has Poppy’s nostrils.” Now that was specific!

Stone has been no different. Though I’ve heard very different opinions about most things about him, the one thing they all agree on is that he has my lips. Poor kid, he inherited the full lips that practically ruined my childhood.

I have to admit, at that age my lips didn’t fit my face, and it was pure ammunition for cruel kids to torment me every day. They called me horrible names and would stick out their bottom lips and use their tongues to make big upper lips, pretending to be me. I went home upset quite often. To make me feel better, my mom would tell me, “Those lips will make you famous one day.” She would then show me people like Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler who are known for their large smackers. This is why, though I’m not the one in the family obsessed with the Rolling Stones, I have a special affection for Mick Jagger.

Stone’s lips are just the same. Being entirely too big for his face, we have a good time watching what his amusing lips can do. For instance, since he has no teeth, occasionally he will suck in his bottom lip in the middle, creating two perfectly sized bottom lips. Adam’s favorite is when he flattens his bottom lip and sucks in the sides of his top lip, forming a cowboy hat shape. When this happens, Adam lovingly states with a grin, “Look! Stone’s Thinking Arby’s!”

Now, Stone is not the first person in our family to Think Arby’s. About a month after we moved into our house, and a few years before the Thinking Arby’s campaign, we were driving to Walmart. Adam was the person physically driving. I sat in the passenger seat needing to be sedated. I don’t do well as a passenger. About a year before this incident Adam and I had had a fight about me being too over critical of his driving. I told him when to brake, when to slow down, and would hold onto the “Oh shit” bar the whole time looking completely terrified. It’s not that Adam is a bad driver. I’m a bad driver. I’m way too cautious, the type of person who brakes as soon as I see another car’s brake lights ahead, even if they’re five miles down the road. It’s pretty sad, and it Adam crazy when I'd warn him that cars were stopping at a red light.

“Yeah honey, I see it.” he’d tell me in a very annoyed tone. It got to the point where he asked me not say anything ever again or he’d leave me on the curb. Realizing I was driving my husband to insanity, I decided to keep quiet no matter how scared I felt. I did well for the following year. Even though my heart raced and I would often break into a cold sweat while Adam sat behind the wheel, I still kept my mouth shut.

Then, on the way to Walmart, on that beautiful warm clear day, we neared a stop light. Since it was such a nice day, no rain or snow, I was able to see things very clearly. We neared the light, a pick-up truck in front of us. My heart beat erratically as the truck’s bumper got closer and closer and our car’s speed didn’t seem to be slowing. The next thing I knew our car had been fused together with the truck’s rear end.

I looked over at Adam and all he had to say for himself was, “Whoops.”

Whoops? I thought to myself. This wouldn’t have happened if I was permitted to be annoying and overbearing.

“What were you looking at?” I demanded, confused at how he didn’t see the large truck now sticking out of our hood.

“Did you know they have two Arby’s melts for four dollars?” he asked with a grin.

Lesson 49: Wrecking your car because you want a roast beef sandwich = white trash

I looked to my right, there sat an Arby’s restaurant with a sign that read exactly what Adam had just told me. I whipped my head back around to glare at my husband, “You wrecked the car because you wanted a sandwich?!”

“Honey, it’s two Arby’s melts for four dollars!”

I was not amused.

A few years later the “Thinking Arby’s" commercials made their debut. The first time we saw one of those commercials, Adam and I both broke out in laughter. We joked about him getting out of the car after the accident with a big red outline of a hat floating above his head.

Now when we’re in the car and Adam suggests stopping at Arby’s, I immediately grab onto the “Oh shit” bar and hold on for my life.