Last Thursday, I called my sister-in-law at work.

“Tammy McK…., this is Laura McK… Get your hiney over here for a pasta dinner after work.”
“I’m there. By 5:00 at the latest.”

My sister was called.
“Meem. [an old nickname] Dinner.”
“Great. I’ll bring the bikes and a salad.”

As the doors to Maria’s SUV slid open, her two girls leapt out. “Hiiii. An-TEE Laur-RAH” Tammy drove up with her almond-eyed girl, Julia, in the back. My guys bounded down the steps of the porch. The five kids cycled in circles in front of the house and were quickly joined by the neighborhood urchins who had sniffed out the party.

After an hour, I brought in Ian and made dinner for everyone. A plastic table cloth went on the dining room table. Paper plates for all. Pasta, salad, steamed broccoli, and garlic bread. Jarred pasta sauce is hardly an inspired meal, but it’s something that everyone eats. I made up for the sauce with the salad which had fresh pepper, sliced red onion, pine nuts, feta cheese, and Brianna’s vinaigrette. Maria brought strawberries. Then I pulled out Shop Rite ice cream sandwiches.

Everyone had a great time. Considering how close we live to each other, we don’t do this enough. Maybe we rely on my mother to organize these events. All the after school activities makes it hard to come up with a night that everyone is free. It’s a shame, because these common dinners conserve so much energy.

It was a meal that I had already planned on making that evening and was easily expanded to feed the guests. Maybe I spent an extra $3. Instead of boiling one pound of pasta, I made two. Same pot of water. An extra 50 cents of pasta. I slurped some Barilla sauce over it. With the guests I used the whole jar, instead of freezing the leftover sauce. One head of broccoli. A few extra leaves of lettuce. An extra loaf of bread. I fed three adults, five kids, and had leftovers for the husbands.

Socially, it was a good thing, too. I had two other adults to talk to, and the kids had companions.

I periodically get interested in joint living facilities. I always thought it would be fun to live on a commune with naked babies and chickens running about. Maybe a family compound with a watch tower. In the 80s, I followed some experiments with joint living housing with common areas for eating and socializing. Joint living uses less resources, is more economical, reduces work, and staves off loneliness. Two single people can save a fortune by jointly owning a home, rather than purchases two homes on their own. All those situations have many benefits. Not to mention, you get to fire your gun off the watch tower whenever you like.

But nobody is interested. Not many people are clambering to get into communal housing. Instead everybody seeks out larger homes on larger plots of land. With all the families on our block, nobody ever suggests a joint meal.

I guess people find other people really annoying. My family can do these common meals, because we’re all family. I can tell my sister that she better help me clean the pots and not worry that she’ll flip out too badly. It’s hard to do that with non-family. If one kid messes up, the adults don’t get too mad, because all the kids share the same DNA.

But with non-family, it’s just not worth the effort. People would rather be lonely and poor, rather than deal other people’s quirks and weirdness.