I pride myself on feeding my kids a colorful diet of healthy, organic food. In fact, my friends frequently tease me for sending edamame and arugula as snacks to preschool. My daughters have even admitted to choosing playmates for their more-desirable lunchbox offerings. “I sat next to Marley today at lunch because she had Doritos!”

Alas, because I know that forbidding anything usually backfires (and because I do love me a good cheeseburger), my car has been spotted idling near the occasional drive-thru window. I try to wait to tear into my sinfully sloppy burger and greasy fries until we get home, and sometimes I am even successful. I’d never go so far as to tell my children not to tell anyone when we indulge, but on some level I guess I hoped they believed it qualified as deviant behavior and would instinctively keep it on the down-low.

Yeah, right.

Not long ago, my best friend and her daughter came to town for a visit. Feigning intrepidness I didn’t feel, I suggested we take the three girls downtown for a stroll. This would mean braving one of the colossal parking structures that make me dizzy and claustrophobic, but finding street parking downtown is harder than finding a strapless bra that actually stays up without the addition of staples or duct tape.

So we parked, and I even had the foresight to send myself a text message with both the garage location and the floor letter and number, as they are all identical and I really didn’t feel like walking around for three or four hours pressing the panic button on my car alarm to find the damned thing. (Again.)

Shopping was fun and the girls were remarkably well-behaved. We found the car with no incident, and wound our way to the exit turnstile. As we waited our turn to pay, I retrieved the parking ticket (yes! I didn’t lose it this time!) and rolled down the window to hand it to the uniformed parking attendant.

“I don’t want a cheeseburger!” my four-year-old bellowed from the backseat. “I want chicken nuggets! But not the square kind, the star-shape kind! And I want ketchup and ranch!”

“Can I have a vanilla shake, mom?” her sister chimed in. “Can I? If I finish my hamburger, can I please? I promise I’ll finish my whole hamburger!”

“You guys need any napkins?” chuckled the attendant between hysterics.

“Can I get one wrapped around a vodka tonic?” I quipped back, thinking how nice that would be when the imminent hell of not producing any fast food was realized.

What did your kids bust you for doing? The more deviant the better, in my book.