A post on facebook, prompted this blog entry. It showed several opened plastic Country Crock butter containers, with the caption "Growing up, I never knew if I was opening the butter or leftovers"
This reminded me so much of my dear old Mother, that I just had to tell a story!
Mom was not a hoarder but she did save certain things that other people would just throw away. One of the things on this list was small plastic containers. When the food in the container was used (butter, cottage cheese, cake icing, etc. etc.) the container was washed and put in the cabinet, ready for those small portions of leftovers. Our refrigerator was usually occupied with an array of these containers, with only my mom knowing the contents of each and every one (or so I thought!).
In the old slight of hand shell game, a pea is put under one of three walnut shells lined up on the table. The short-con operator (the swindler) then shuffles the shells, arranges them again in a row on the table and asked the mark (the one getting swindled) to choose the shell with the pea. Depending on the ability of the con man or the luck of the mark, the right shell is chosen (or not).
One cold winter day, mom had packed my lunch with something hot in my soup thermos, cornbread or crackers for the thermos contents, perhaps a banana; and a plastic cake icing container full of strawberry shortcake. With coffee from my Aladdin Thermos, I was all set for a great lunch and dessert, while warming up in the truck.
I ate all of what mom had packed, saving the container of strawberry shortcake until last; a grand finale of sorts.
When I opened the cake icing container, with my spoon poised in the air, ready to dig into the succulent, sweet, delicious dessert... I saw brown... oblong things... in a brownish gravyish stuff...
It was cold PINTO BEANS!!!
Yep! I had been duped! cheated! played! Hornswoggled! By my own Mother!! Egads!
We all had a good laugh and mom was super embarrassed; when I got home and told her and the family about the "The Brown Bean Swindle!"
