Concerning Mold and In-laws

As I was diligently performing my noble domestic labors today (making egg-salad sandwiches for lunch), I noticed a spot of mold on a piece of bread. Instantly I had a dilemma (and microscopic mold spores) on my hands. The question: What to do with the loaf of bread? I am sure there are some who would throw away the loaf. Not me. I searched through the slices of bread, picked off any spots of mold I found, and made sandwiches to feed to my unsuspecting family, operating under the premise “what they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

What a lousy premise. Who thought of that one anyway? People didn’t know that rats were hauling around the Plague and contaminating their food. People didn’t know that leeches were sucking them (not the bad spirits) dry. And look what happened to them. But this hasn’t been the only erroneous logic I’ve used in my parenting. I’ve also heard myself say, “If you do that your face will stay that way!”

Anyway, I’m sure my family will be perfectly healthy after eating the sandwiches. The bread will taste like any other bread. Their only complaint will be that it is wheat, not white. But they are getting used to my new health-conscious answer (“the whiter the bread, the quicker you’re dead!”—perhaps more bad logic), so that doesn’t bother me. The thing that made me pause and reflect was when I heard the voice in my head ask me if I was turning into my father-in-law.

My father-in-law. Larry can take bailing wire, a few screws and pieces of scrap metal and make pretty much anything he needs. He’s really quite clever this way. A greasy Martha Stewart of sorts. But along with his innovative spirit comes a pack rat beyond any I’ve seen. He had enough stuff that a house, a garage, a tool shed and a cabin weren’t enough to hold all his junk. He had a barn, too. He sold the barn a year or two ago and watching him try to part with his stuff was pretty poignant. He managed to pass a few important items on to his sons, though. (Thanks, Dad.)

But that’s just the mechanical stuff. He has the same philosophy when it comes to food. Once I watched him work to get the last little bit of poppy-seed salad dressing out of the bottle. I would have whacked the bottle a few times, and maybe even put it upside-down for a little while to let gravity do its thing. That’s not good enough for Larry. I watched in disbelief as he added water (not a little) to the bottle, shook it up, and poured it on his salad (which probably had been recovered from someone else’s plate about to go to the trash). I saw him do the same thing with a ketchup bottle, too. I try not to be wasteful, but come on.

It’s not just the last bits of dressings in bottles, either. He takes leftovers to a whole new level. Expiration date? They don’t know what they’re talking about. Smell? What smell? If it’s not lumpy, drink it. If it’s not too fuzzy, eat it. And my poor OCD mother-in-law can’t stand anything a mess. Imagine the controversy when she starts to clean out the fridge. She’s learned it’s best to do it while he’s working or out for the day. She has actually brought leftovers to my house to put them down my disposal so he won’t see.

The thing of it is, Larry is healthy as a horse. I don’t know if he’s ever had food poisoning, and I think he’s only had Giardia once (he probably forgot to strain the water through his handkerchief). So maybe what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you after all.