Swanson, $1.89, freezer aisle

The cowboy, usually an excellent cook, especially of Asian cuisine, has had to rely on frozen dinners due to his broken collarbone.

Frozen dinners can seem enticing when you're hungry, but then you sort of feel dirty after you've eaten. This is why bulimia exists. Sure, "French Women Don't Get Fat," but French women also don't purge; it is morally wrong to throw up decent French cooking. It's understandable to throw up a Hungry Man Meatloaf with Gravy Dinner.

This reminded me ... as a teenager in Virginia I babysat for a family that had an enormous standalone freezer in their living room, stocked with at least a hundred individually-wrapped frozen hamburgers, hotdogs, and tacos. Each night they'd let their kids pick one item, they'd nuke it, and that was it.

People in bomb shelters eat better than that. U.N. gruel is more nutritious.

This family also had a neon Budweiser sign in their living room.