Steve and I needed a colander to sift dried corn (don't ask), and as we were leaving for the discount store, one son said, "Have a nice date, Mom and Dad." He thinks whenever we do something without him, it's a date, and perhaps it is as time alone as a couple is always a pleasure.
We ended up buying some groceries and other stuff since it is common knowledge you can't go to Meijers without spending $100 minimum. The woman in front of us in the check-out lane was taking a long time so we gradually fell into a little game of categorizing our purchases as we were unloading our cart. You know, the groceries in one place, the garden stuff in another, etc. And then we got caught up in the game. With much earnestness we started to rearrange things. "No, the eggs must be next to the cheese because I'm making omelets." We fed off each other and became very intense about this. And then Steve burst into laughter because the woman in front of us kept glancing at us with worried looks.
That was that. Just some silliness, nothing unusual for us.
Then I went to the grocery store a few days later and the bag boy was playing our game, except it wasn't a game to him. It was very sad. OCD is not a game. It is a crippling disease.
2 comments:
OK, I gotta ask. Why were you sifting dried corn? Was it for your corn-burning stove?
Yes. We got a batch of corn that had a lot of dust and the dust would catch in the shoot, burn, form a crust and the corn would back up behind it and not feed right. We decided to sift out the dust rather than load up half a ton of corn and return it. While it has been a major hassle, there was something endearing in a pioneer sort of way about the family sitting around cleaning corn.
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