Tag: reflection

Tips

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Over many years, and through many mistakes, I have learned to check pockets before I throw clothing in the washing machine. It all started years ago, when my children would tuck crayons, tissues, toys, and trinkets into their pockets for safe keeping. The first crayon that went through the laundry was purple. A pair of boys’ tan cargo pants received the brunt of the damage. But since the crayon was in with a load of light clothes, it wasn’t difficult to spot streaky purple scars on shirts, underwear, socks, and even a pillowcase.

From then on, I tried to be much better about checking pockets. But all it takes is one day of dead-tired chores for me to slip up. And slip up, I did. This time, it was an orange crayon. Orange seems to be a grittier, stay-in-place kind of color. The orange crayon ruined one pair of (again) tan cargo pants when it disintegrated and stuck in the pocket like glue. Oh, and it bled through, so there really was no chance of wearing the pants again.

The next time I checked pockets too quickly, a few years later, I missed a lip balm. Lip balm melts very nicely down to nearly nothing in the heat of the dryer. There was just enough left to permanently leave an oily mark on everything it touched. Several more items were ruined.

Since these incidents, I have gotten much better at checking pockets. Often, I find spare change that I have dubbed “laundry tips.” Usually, I find a penny or a dime or a quarter here and there. Sometimes I might retrieve a dollar or two folded up into a tiny square, or to my disappointment, a baggie full of cracker crumbs (these I don’t eat…).

The stakes are higher nowadays, with flash drives and cell phones stored in pockets and sometimes forgotten. One of these items left in a pocket and run through the washer could cause some serious data loss, and as I mentioned, occasionally I am dead tired. So I have added an incentive for my offspring to check their own pockets: Anything I find while doing the laundry is mine to keep if I choose. While laundry tipping is often an involuntary activity, it always results from the voluntary refusal to check one’s own pockets before throwing clothing in the hamper.

Of course, sometimes they catch their mistakes before I can benefit. The other day, I was working in the kitchen when W walked in and started up the stairs. “I should probably go remove the ‘tip’ from my laundry,” he said as he passed. He had thrown his pants in the hamper with a pocket full of Christmas money. To my estimates, it would have been my best “tip” to date!

My loss, but clearly, the message is starting to sink in.

Oddities #2

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As the mom of a brood of hungry teens, I tend to buy various favorite food items when they are on sale. Bagels fall into this category because they freeze well for a short period of time. I buy them, slice them, and pop them in the freezer for consumption over the next couple of weeks.

For some reason, it seems my children never finish one bag before they start another bag. I have, at times, had two or more bags with half a bagel kicking around in the freezer. After all, we all know that if you want a whole bagel, the top and bottom must both come from the same bagel, right? Teen rule #1 about consuming bagels: Do not ever split up a bagel to make a new whole.

Interestingly, the single bagel halves in my freezer tend to be the bottom half. In one way, that is not surprising. The bagel bottoms would likely be the last in the bag. The surprising thing is that I have found up to three bagel bottoms lingering in my freezer while a new bag is being consumed.

To discover the reasoning behind this oddity, I went straight to the source. “Would you rather eat the top of a bagel or the bottom?” I asked my youngest. He thought for a minute.

“The bottom,” he responded, so I asked him why. “It tastes better.” Hmm. If it is all the same bagel, does one piece “taste better” than the other? This thought is an interesting one, but does not explain the reasoning for the plethora of bagel bottoms in my freezer.

I moved on to my next test subject, who was cleaning her room. Since this activity is one I try not to interrupt, I made it quick. “Would you prefer to eat the bottom of the bagel or the top?”

“It depends on what kind of bagel it is. If it’s a sesame bagel, I’d rather eat the top because it has all the sesame seeds. If it’s a plain bagel, I like the bottom.”

The response of my oldest? “I eat them both,” …and everything else in sight, I’ve learned.

My research was, therefore, inconclusive. There is no reason that I should have three bagel bottoms loitering in my freezer. According to my children, they eat both tops and bottoms equally. Which leads me back to the question of when a container is empty. If half a bagel remains, but the eater wants a whole bagel, is the bag considered “empty”? This will likely remain another of the great mysteries of raising teens.

Carhops

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“I want to eat French fried mushrooms from A&W,” I announced, responding to a sudden craving I had. I was driving with my two younger children to complete some last minute holiday errands. The food item was one I experienced in my childhood, and one that I sometimes crave simply because it is no longer available.

“A&W… isn’t that beer?” my daughter asked.

“It’s root beer,” my youngest corrected from the back seat.

“And yummy root beer, at that,” I said. “You can still get the root beer, but sadly, the A&W is closed.” I allowed my mind to wander for a minute, reminiscing on the taste of fried mushrooms delivered on a tray to the car window on a warm summer night. “We would pull in and park, and they would come take our order and serve us right at the car.”

“So it was a drive-thru?” my daughter asked.

“Not a drive-thru like today. It was a drive-in restaurant. I don’t think many exist any more. We would go there and park and stay in our car. The waitress would come to the car window to take our order, and they would bring the food on a tray with hooks on it. Grampa would roll down his window most of the way, and they would hook the tray to the car window.”

“Is it still there?” my daughter asked.

“The A&W? The building is still there, but now it’s a pizzeria. No more carhops or window trays. I suppose you could eat in your car if you really wanted, but it wouldn’t be the same.” I remembered many summer nights when we would go to the A&W; I thought of the foil coated burger wrappers and the times we ended up eating next to a family we knew. When we were really young, my mother would spread a striped sheet on the seat of the car so that my sister and I wouldn’t spill our food and stain the seat.

When we returned home from our errands, I googled “car hop.” I came across pictures of the trays with the rubber-coated hooks and feet. There was even a frosty mug of A&W root beer on a tray that was hooked on a car window. You can even purchase one of these trays on eBay! Yes, it would be fun to share this experience with my children, but drive-in restaurants are a thing of the past. Our summers are too short for such a business to succeed these days. And drive-thru restaurants are quicker and more convenient than drive-in restaurants.

I sometimes think about the many experiences I had in my childhood that my children are not likely to have. I wonder what we are currently experiencing that my grandchildren will not. And I wonder what they will experience that we have not dreamt of yet. I hope their experiences will be fun and positive and worth remembering, experiences of their own “simpler times” when people gathered together to be present and to enjoy the company of friends and family.

Joseph

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Christmas is over, but my reflection on Christmas is not. This year, I have been drawn to a particular song and the story it tells; the song, “A strange way to save the world” by the group 4-Him, is told from the point of view of Joseph as he finds himself in the unlikely position of being in the stable in Bethlehem, staring into the face of Jesus. He wonders how he ended up here, and why God is using a mere baby to save the world.

We don’t often think about Joseph when we think about the Christmas story. He was not directly involved in the miracle of Christmas… or was he? He certainly had an opportunity to say no. He could have told Mary that because she was pregnant, he was no longer interested. Or he might have said he didn’t particularly want to raise someone else’s child, Son of God or not. He could have walked away and been free of the responsibility that God was asking him to take on.

But he didn’t.

First, he accepted that the child Mary was carrying was the Son of God, acceptance that was a miracle in itself (though the angels may have helped to sway him). Second, he agreed to raise this child as his own, to provide for the boy to the best of his ability. Third, he accepted the challenges that would arise in raising the Son of God. (“Jesus, you have got to stop walking on the lake! Bobby nearly drown yesterday because he can’t swim. His parents are furious…!”) Most importantly, he accepted that he would take a backseat to the child and to Mary, who figured prominently in our historical accounts of Jesus’s life. Joseph was a behind-the-scenes figure in this story.

When God said, “Joseph, will you…,” Joseph stepped up. And then he stepped into the background. The shepherds came and went. The Wise Men brought gifts and disappeared. Joseph remained constant, but we hear little about him.

No doubt, this situation was not what Joseph was expecting for his life. He was expecting to get married to the woman he loved. He was expecting to lead a quiet life with no fanfare and little drama; yet suddenly, he found himself with the heavy burden of supporting a child, raising the Son of God. What faith he demonstrated in accepting this challenge!

As we move through life, we should strive to be more like Joseph. We should strive to have the faith to accept the challenges that God throws our way. Joseph did not say, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t fit into my plan.” He didn’t reject the inconvenience of having a bride and a baby that wasn’t his. He realized that since God had chosen him, God would provide the tools to help him complete the job. He accepted God’s plan with all of its uncertainties and inconveniences, and he stepped out of the way to let God work through him.