I decide to whip up a favorite dinner: cheese and onion enchiladas ranchero. I put together a zippy chile with a massive dose of Espanola red. I use two cheeses: asadero and medium cheddar. I sauté a sliced white onion. Three corn tortillas sandwich the cargo, the stack popped in the microwave for a minute or so to melt the cheeses, the whole shebang topped with a runny-good poached egg.

I whip up a serving of guacamole with a single avocado, some minced white onion, a bit of smushed garlic, salt, pepper and lime juice … and I am off to the races.

Part two of the guilty pleasure scenario: I do something that, were Kathy here, would land me square in the dog house: I waddle to the couch, switch on the tube and eat while I watch TV.

Unfortunately, my pleasure is cut short.

It is my fault; I turn to a cable “news” network, and I get what I deserve.

Coverage of a town hall meeting. The buzz kill of all time.

A gaggle of loud, and old, white people mills around yelling, enthusiastically enacting roles in a made-for-TV drama. Some shout about “socialism” while, I suspect, they also partake of Medicare and/or VA health Care”— two of the most clearly socialistic programs in the country. They yell about “Death Panels” though no such panels exist or are envisioned. A Republican legislator put provisions in the proposed healthcare bill that would allow for counseling on end-of-life decisions, i.e. living wills. No doubt some of the lusty protestors have living wills.

But, that’s not the point, is it?

The performance is on a par with the pink-shirted antiwar crowd that interrupted congressional hearings a while back. Proof positive incivility can find its way to all parts of the political and social spectrum.

A retirement-age woman stands, microphone in hand, and, to the cheers of her compatriots weeps and screams: “I want my America back. This is not the America I grew up in. I want my America back.”

There’s a quick and sure answer to this.

It’s not gonna happen.

The America she, and I, grew up in was an America with grotesque racial separation, some of it codified in law. It was an America in which sexism was the order of the day; women having little chance to succeed on par with male counterparts. It was an America dominated by white males — economically, socially, politically.

That America ain’t comin’ back, no matter how many folks weep at rallies.

As I eat, I think: This fear is not about socialism, or healthcare plans, or most of the other targets propped up and shot at these meetings and on cable’“news” shows.

Need a statement that summarizes the situation? Credible estimates propose 2040 as the time the Anglo American population will become a minority group.

Add to that the fact a serious portion of a privileged population is getting to a point where the fact of their mortality is unavoidable and the worries about health and welfare that go with that recognition become crystal clear. The Big D is looming, and nothing makes a body feel more powerless than that.

Add to that the precarious state of the economy —layoffs, bankruptcies, foreclosures, investment losses.

The generation that hoots and howls at town hall meetings has every right to do so under the law, but we also have an obligation to remember that, for the most part, these people did not live through the Depression. They heard stories about it, yes, but few actually experienced it. They grew up, instead, in America Lost in an age of incredible plenty, an era in which an unprecedented (white) middle class flourished and the veneer of power and prosperity shielded them from the inevitable.

An inevitable born of the Bill of Rights, of the desires of the homeless, the oppressed, the poor, the masses yearning to be free. (I seem to remember those terms from somewhere.)

The inevitable is coming to pass. And it is unsettling to a blessed and coddled generation.

Difficult times are ahead for all Americans as we struggle to reform an economy, to restructure a society in flux, to balance the interests of an ever-wider spectrum of peoples and interests while preserving the basic principle on which the country was founded.

The question is whether we will create a melting pot rather than a pantry comprising impenetrable and contentious enclaves defined by age, gender, sexual preference, race and economic status.

“I want my America back.”

Ain’t gonna happen.

I would recommend a stack of enchiladas with an incendiary red.

If it upsets your stomach, take a Prilosec.

If you are lucky enough to have insurance, perhaps it will cover a small part of the grossly inflated cost.

If you don’t have the insurance, you’ll have to wait until you’re 65 … and a socialist.