I opened my lunch box and peered inside it. "What do you have?" One of the nursing staff asked me.
"An apple, a cutie, some nuts, two cookies, and something else," I said, lifting up a green Tupperware container that would have fit beautifully in a kitchen with a 1970s décor. I opened the container as the suspense built in the lunch room. "Looks like a frozen burrito," I said.
I took the oblong item and stuck it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. When the microwave indicated that my food was done, I took it out and touched it gingerly with my finger. It seemed to be warm all the way through.
I brought it back to the table, lifted my fork, and cut away the end of the Mexican delicacy. I blew on it briefly and then popped the bite in my mouth. Immediately, I discovered a whole world of pain.
The burrito did not contain, as I had anticipated a mixture of beans and meat. Rather, it was filled with liquid, scalding magma! I had unknowingly bitten into a volcanic burrito and was rapidly losing the skin inside my mouth as a result.
Of course, the problem was not with the burrito. I suppose I could have cut thirty seconds off its cook time and I wouldn't have suffered quite as much, but the bigger problem is that I lack the patience necessary to eat one comfortably. Two more minutes of letting my burrito cool would probably have been sufficient to allow me to keep my mouth and tongue safe.
Patience is a virtue worth having. It makes the lives of those around us more enjoyable as we won't get upset as easily with little speed bumps within our days. It will give us peace in some of the stressful situations that each day is bound to contain.
It can even protect a hungry doctor from a volcanic burrito.
