via Daily Prompt: Vanish

One of the nice things about being a small town business owner is that, once you get fairly-well “dug in,” you have an opportunity to engage with people, and develop a public personality.  My public personality is fairly easy to figure out (and about the same as my personal one): I enjoy food, and food-related activities.  The people who know me here and have become “regulars,” know this about me, and, in true “Hawaiian God” fashion, my girthy self is often the recipient of homemade goodies, stacks of food laid up on my counter for me, or other goodies.  I haven’t gone two days in a row in probably five years where someone didn’t bring me a cake or cookies or brownies, handmade or prepared snacks, something to drink, just anything.  I have made it standard practice to use my shop as a vehicle to help the community, and in response, the community has been amazing to me.  I appreciate, very much, all of the kindness demonstrated in food.  However, I have a confession that needs to be made…

I am a Tupperware thief.  Not just Tupperware though: Glad, Ziploc, Pyrex…anything that you bring me food in, just assume that you will never get it back.  I would like to say that I don’t do this out of meanness or spite, and most of the time, I don’t.  However, whether it be forgetfulness, or just a plain, old-fashioned attraction to the fancy colors of the dishes you bring me, I can guarantee you this: I will not give it back.

The life of a “donated dish,” is pretty much the same for all that come to me.  I will either eat the food right away (depending on what it is), and put the dish in my take-home crate; or, I will put it in the fridge here to eat later.  Or, I’ll put it in the crate to take home and eat there.  Invariably, the dish will end up in my sink at home to get cleaned up, and make its way into my cabinets.  The haphazard, near-schizophrenic stacking of these in my cabinets will lastly for about a month or two, and then my manic, sorta-OCD self kicks in and I take everything out of the cabinet and back to the shop.  No, it’s not to give back to its owner; it usually ends up on the shelf of kitchen wares that we have for sale here.  As horrible as it sounds, yes, I will take that dish you gave me, and at some point, will sell it back to you.  I realize that this doesn’t make me a very good person, but I also know what I’m about as a person, and I doubt that I’ll change much between now and the time leave this Earth, so I’ve decided to accept myself for who I am.

My grandmother, who I credit as being the best and most amazing person in the world, once really got onto me about my Tupperware issue.  I never returned her dishes either (this sickness goes WAY back).  One time, she lectured me about it.  I mumbled out an excuse–I was in college, I was busy, I was forgetful, whatever the case may have been, I do not recall.  I was at her house because she had made chili and wanted some company.  I was 23 or 25 or so (all those early 20s ages seem the same as I get older), and we had a nice chat and dinner together.  As always, she prepared me a “to go” meal to take home. Sher was standing with her back to me, and I came to give her a hug and say good bye.  She smiled, gave me a hug, and handed me what appeared to be a tin foil bag of some kind.  My grandmother, all 5 ft 1 of her, with only an 8th grade education, would never be outdone by the likes of me (or anyone else for that matter).  She patted me on the arm, while she handed me the VERY tenuous “bowl” that she’d fashioned out of a single layer of tin foil, filled with hot chili.  “Robert, since you have no intention of bringing back my bowls, I gave you one that you are welcome to keep!”

After a disastrous ride home, a trip to the walk-in clinic, and a professional detailing of the inside of my car, I decided that I would change my dish-return policy to this one person right here, no matter what.  And, until they moved her to a facility for dementia this past year, I always did.  For anyone else, their Tupperware will continue to vanish.  For this dear, sweet, genius diminutive woman, I changed my ways.

Hey, even a Hawaiian god has to listen to his gramma.