You Could Still Use That!

My mom is the child of depression-era parents. This means she learned from a very young age to not waste anything, to look for new uses for old things and to hang on to anything that might have a use down the line. This sounds like I’m setting her up for one of those horrible hoarding stories. I’m not. I’m setting her up so I can make fun of her.

Each Sunday my family heads on over to my mom’s place for dinner. I get to chat with one of my closest friends, Bill gets to watch whatever game is on tv and the kids get to play with a different set of toys that are reserved for grandma’s house. With my grown up eyes, I like to look at things that were around my house when I was a kid that were just there. When you’re a child, you’re not too concerned with the items in the house unless they expressly belong to you and there’s a threat of that changing. I’ve looked through old cookbooks that are faded and torn,

(not my mom's, but she has the same one)

laughed at the funky prints on the oven mitts from the 1960’s and asked my mom to PLEASE get rid of the washcloths she received at her wedding. Well, you know, they still make good dusting rags. The most fun I have is when I go through the lazy susan in the pantry. There’s all kinds of good, laugh worthy products on that big plastic disk. Usually I’ll find a few items with price stickers on them. “What’s wrong with that?” my mother asks. Well mom, no one uses stickers to label groceries anymore and certainly not at 19¢. I’ve come across a four pack of food coloring. There’s nothing too hilarious about that except that when I opened the box, I found that all the bottles were glass and the food coloring had been reduced to colored powder. Did she dispose of it? No. Why? Because you can just add a little water and it’ll be good as new. Psst! Don’t eat the blue cupcakes if you come to visit.

Last night was just too funny for me. I opened the pantry and asked, “Hmm, what can I find that’s funny in here tonight?” Of course my mom rolled her eyes at me and mocked me, surely thinking that I’ll be in her spot one day with my own kids laughing at my expense. I spun the lazy susan around and came across a bottle of colored sprinkles, er, sort of. “Mom! Seriously. WHAT are you going to decorate with these?? A cupcake?” She started to defend herself and then couldn’t do it with a straight face and began to laugh at herself. There was maybe a quarter of a teaspoon of what used to be pastel colored sprinkles. However, they were almost all white, having faded over time and they’d SHRUNK! The only thing left was the center of the sprinkle. That was the only item I’ve been able to convince her to toss out. But wait! There’s more! She only threw the sprinkles in the trash. She saved the glass bottle for recycling. You know, because it can be used for something else!