So we had a thing last night. A thing that looked like oceans of water flooding down the street as we turned the corner, to go up the hill, and home. Turns out that water was coming straight from our house! Needless to say I met some neighbors that I’d never had the pleasure to speak to before, and our water bill will surely take all of my latte money for the next five years. This, my friends, is one of those emergency moments.
Even though I think I’m so totally cool pulling together a gluten-free emergency go bag, this time I forgot one big thing. In an actual emergency, you don’t have time to bake muffins. And apparently when I’m faced with an emergency, I panic. I packed clothes, tooth brushes, my make-up (gotta’ look good in the event of a crisis!), bottles of water, and M&Ms. I looked into my cabinets and thought, “Hmmm, I’m guessing the Holiday Inn doesn’t have much in the way of gluten-fr– oh, forget it.” Then I packed up my family late at night and headed down the street to beg the nice people to let us have a deal since it was almost tomorrow anyway, and no one else was going to show up and take that room.
Here’s what they had in the way of snacks in the room:
Already satiated with M&Ms, I hunkered down and waited until breakfast. Here’s what they had for breakfast.
Here’s my husband rightly pissed off at the whole situation.
Not even The USA Today could make him happy. In their defense’ish, they had this omelette thing. So I started in on the “omelette” but honestly, it was so perfectly formed I knew there was something in there other than eggs. No one could help me out with that info — especially since I’m sure they came straight from Omelettes ‘R’ Us — so I “enjoyed” a couple of slices of bacon. Lucky for me (wait, not lucky, not lucky at all) we were across the street from a Starbucks and I could get . . . dry roasted almonds for breakfast.
Needless to say, this was a colossal gluten-free fail on my part. You guys, I had KIND bars in my cabinet. I still had that awesome jar of almond butter and gluten-free crackers. Instead, I just thought, “Fuck it.” My split decision to allow the Holiday Inn to take care of my dietary needs was not awesome. My kids, however, thought they’d died and gone to heaven when they got Fruit Loops (or is it Froot Loops?) for breakfast. Which they may get again since I’m sitting here waiting for a plumber and I’m getting a bad feeling about this.
But if we wind up back at the inn where one holidays again tonight, I’ll be prepared. And from now on I’m going to bake gluten-free muffins every day as if my very life depended on it. That’s a good takeaway, right?
Top image via Doodletogs
Gluten is my Bitch 
Oh, I’m so sorry! What a mess! At least your son is in carb heaven for a few days!
Clean underwear, too, did you pack any? My son, at 19, was critically injured in an oil field accident in 2004. I was FOLDING my laundry, for god’s sake, when we got the call. I briefly looked at my stack of clean clothes and thought, “I should probably just pick that up and bring it with me” followed quickly by your same idea of “fuck it, we need to get in the car” and out the door I went. I lived about 4 days in those clothes. Then my husband drove 150 miles home and packed a bag for me which ended up containing an odd selection of things from the very back of my closet???? The whole thing was like a bad dream.
Sorry for your plumbing emergency (there are far too many of those in the world; I’m starting to believe there’s something fundamentally unstable about the whole business of pushing pressurized liquids through pipes, but, um, that’s a topic for another rant). Sorrier that Holiday Inn–and, let’s be honest, most every “complimentary breakfast” at most every hotel–sucks for gluten freedom.
ugh, my parents just went through a plumbing emergency too. What a nightmare. I have yet to experience an emergency while being gluten-free but I am starting to think I need to have a gluten-free go bag in my car, purse, work desk, husband’s car, and etc. But gluten-free food goes bad so quickly! GAH
I was just mentioning a plumbing emergency from my past today. It was caused my a moron with no concept of the physical laws that govern life on our planet, and (in a roundabout way) introduced me to the glory that is the Big Cup Reese Peanut Butter Cup.
What caused your hydraulic explosion?
I do love a peanut butter cup.
Long story short — apparently our pipes are super old and putting in new plants outside made them split wide open. Or as the plumber said, “Walking lightly on the soil would have made them split wide open.” This, of course, was nothing we were informed of when we had the entire house inspected last year before we bought it.
Yes, to wildsprouts, my kids loaded up on carbs and were begging me to go back to the hotel tonight. In fact, my son asked, “Can this be our new house?” Some people have pretty weak standards for luxury, it appears. Thank god.
A gluten free go-bag? This is a genius concept and I need to create one, immediately! The other day I was rushing in the morning and didn’t have time for much breakfast, so I ate a GF lemon bar in the car (just super filling) on the way to work. Then, work was so chaotic I had to skip lunch. So by 6:00 pm when I realized I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home, I was like some kind of flesh-eating zombie, except I wanted cake, not flesh. I couldn’t think clearly but finally settled on some salted cashews and ate the whole can on the way home (not a calorie or fat-wise choice). A little advance planning could have prevented this cashew tragedy! Does not even compare to your plumbing nightmare… but we both learned the world does not make living on the fly easy for the celiac.
Those days are the WORST!!! I know. I need to start packing once a week because, you never know.
Holiday Inns are *horrible* for gluten-free options. (Either that or I’ve stayed at all the wrong ones .) I had a promising moment at one; the chef happened to be at the front desk when I asked about GF, and he was very knowledgeable and had good suggestions. Of course, he was gone by the time we went to the restaurant, and our server acted as if she had never heard the word “celiac” – much less “gluten” – before. Argh. We went to Target for a GoPicnic instead. Hate %^* Holiday Inn.
Jeez. I don’t think I’ve been to a HI in awhile, but now I’ll totally avoid them!!!