[This is a true story. Oh, I know. I shouldn’t say that. ALL my stories are true, more or less. But you know this one really is true because it’s too good to be made up.]
Here goes:
Janice, a new bride, decided to surprise her husband, Eddie, and bake him a carrot cake. It turned out beautifully, with cream cheese frosting and everything.
But just before he took a bite Eddie paused. Something wasn’t quite right. What was it? Wait, he remembered: they didn’t own a grater. How in the world had his bride grated the carrots?
He asked her. She told him.
Janice said she had chewed up a whole bag of carrots, spit them out, washed them good, and put them in the cake. It was hard work — her jaws were still sore.
I know you’re wondering: Did Eddie eat the cake?
Oh, that’s too easy: Would you have eaten it?
* * *
Speaking of food that’s not fit to eat, at least by most folks, I have another nominee.
A bunch of us were up at Snowbird, in the mountains of North Carolina, in November when I saw one of my nephews, Mike Stith, ruin a perfectly good banana and mayonnaise sandwich.
He put pepper on it, lots and lots of pepper.
Knowing that some of you might find that hard to believe I whipped out my iPhone and got proof.
Mike just says, “Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it.”
You get right down to it, what Mike did isn’t surprising. My brother, Pop, Mike’s Dad, put pepper on his banana sandwiches, too.
Mike said Pop put pepper on pepper.
On at least one occasion, Pop put pepper on a piece of lemon pie. As far as I know there’s no law against that, but there ought to be.
***
And I have one more nominee.
Brother Dave; my wife, Donna; and I went to New York after Christmas to visit old family friends, Dan and Daniele Woods, and their children, Fiona and Eamon.
We’re sitting at their dinner table one evening when I saw Fiona soak her green beans with Mexican hot sauce. And then she ate them.
It’s OK to put butter and sugar on grits –I do that — but hot sauce on green beans?
Pepper on a banana sandwich?
Oh, I know:
Live and let live.
To each his, or her, own.
And, most important, Mind your own business, Pat.
Coming Friday: Advanced Reporting