For any parent, a road trip can be an extreme stressor. It wasn’t much different for my dad, except it was all compounded his divorce, visiting his family he hadn't seen in years as they were all in California, DC or Iran, and that he had to drive a 1978 Ford Maverick all by himself with three young kids at varying states of defiance.

Then he stomped his feet as loud as he could have on our wooden porch. Almost instantaneously, the two figures in the garage dropped whatever metal vessels they had with them for carrying the gas they were planning on siphoning from my parent’s cars. And before the containers hit the ground they were scurrying away, reversing their path to our garage. Kicking up dust in their midst. Gravel and asphalt crackling under the their footfalls.

Asking for condiments was a violation almost as grave as not wanting to try something unfamiliar. It was a corollary rookies would often violate. No matter how much we tried to stop or prepare them for the protocol, we’d inevitably fail. One such occasion came in my sophomore year of high school, one of my less experienced friends joined us for the usual Friday feast of grilled meats, rice (one bowl of plain rice, another bowl of rice with egg yolk), and salad.