Every once in a while I slip you a tidbit about myself, just in case you end up on Jeopardy and I end up as one of the questions.
I rescue the down and out, the trodden under. To be more specific — plasticware headed for the dump.
I went to a PWA (plasticware anonymous) meeting once and in a blur of confessionals admitted that I still had plastic forks from my wedding — the first one. I can’t toss them in the trash. I have nightmares of little plastic fork prongs sticking up out of the landfill mounds, and preventing my great grandchildren from roaming free.
The rest of my family don’t feel quite the same way about the sanctity of little spoons and knives. So this weekend at the extended family dinner, I secretly stole utensils off of doomed paper plates, and quietly placed them in a baggie (which I could re-use later). Just as I was stashing the last one, my daughter Coco, the NPR advocate, grabbed my stash and exposed me. “Mom, you’ve got to stop it,” she implored. “At your going-away bash, we’re going to eat on paper plates, afterwards passing by trash receptacles, holding the utensils high overhead and ritually dropping our forks in.” She didn’t add “while we stick out our tongues,” but I knew that’s what she meant. But secretly I knew it was just a cover. She was jealous.
In fact she wasn’t that much different than me. She’d rescued a kitten, Bob, she named him. Her holiday presents this year to family were decorated in mosaic patches of Christmas past wrapping. It’s fun to see you’ve passed along a few traits.
Still I didn’t divulge that earlier in the week, I’d picked up washable paper plates. (And I know you’re thinking, if they’re reusable, what’s the purpose.)
Related posts:
- Sunday morning with kids
- Motherhood Á la arsenic
- The unique one
- It must be time
- A little here, a little there
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