Not even coke dealers offer "nosebag specials."

You have to wonder if a Mom looked at this page, and thought: I'm glad I picked up this booklet. Hot dogs plus Pork & Beans? In the same meal? That's the sort of "insider-know-how" you'd have to be a professional home economist to figure out. One of those middle-aged ladies in the front of the other pamphlets. The ones who seem so independent. They get to invent food and other people make it and then they go out to dinner with men, different ones every month, to restaurants, and she doesn't have to worry about how the meal's cooked, and besides he picked it. Then cocktails at the Stork Club. Sometimes that seems so . . . glamorous, even if none of those women have children. I mean, they can't, can they?

Hours later, husband looks down at plate: "hot dogs and pork and beans? What is this, Cafe Gunsmoke?" Later he hears her sniffling while she does the dishes, wonders if she's upset, and thinks better of asking.