Logic is Also Subjective

My mother used to say that the best thing about having 3 teenagers at home despite the fact that the grocery bill was through the roof because of them was that no matter what, when she and my dad came home with food, there were 3 eager helpers to put food away. It's not that we were so eager to be helpful of course. No, we just wanted to see what they got and plan how we were going to keep the other two from eating all the good stuff. I've since learned that my step-brother was hiding boxes of the good cereal in his room. And he would wrap anything he wanted to eat in aluminum foil because he knew no one would look to see what was in it. Dastardly and genius. But I digress...

My children are not teenagers yet. But I make them put the groceries away anyway because that's the mean kind of mom that I am. They are more eager to put groceries away if they haven't actually accompanied me to the store. Last night there was all kinds of hooting and hollering because of all the incredibly AWESOME food that I bought. The boy-child has complimented me several times on my shopping excursion. I think he actually thinks this makes my heart sing with joy, as if I live for nothing other than to have a perfectly awesome grocery shopping trip as defined by a 7 and a 12 year old. Yeah, right. But if slipping some treats in here and there gets them to put away groceries? Well, I'm not above that. 

This morning, I realized that one of the consequences of the kids putting the food away is that they don't necessarily put them where I would. I'm not an overly uptight person when it comes to kitchen organization but I do have my methods. Basically, food is grouped by the type of food that it is. For example, one cabinet is for pudding mixes, nuts, dried fruit, peanut butter and miscellaneous bread mixes. The other one is for tea, coffee, hot chocolate, honey and soup mixes. There is a cabinet for cereals and snacks and the lazy-susan in the corner is for canned foods. This all makes sense to me. I assume because the kids live in the house they know where much of this stuff goes. 

Yeah, you know what happened. I assumed wrong. 

This morning, I was looking for sweetener for my tea. I looked in the cabinet where the tea is. Not there. I looked in the one next to it. Not there either. I had to stop a moment and think, where would my kids have put it?

I recalled a conversation we had last night. The boy-child had a bottle of olive oil in hand when he came down to talk to me while I was walking on the treadmill. He held it up to me. "It's olive oil," I said which is just stupid because like he cares!

The girl-child piped in, "It's a bottle. It goes in the lazy-susan."

"No!" I yelled. "It's olive oil! It goes in the cupboard by the stove with the spices!" 

All I heard was "Okay!" as the boy-child bounded up the stairs.

If bottles go in the lazy-susan, boxes go where? With the cereal! Sure enough, there is the box of sweetener with all the boxes of cereal. So I guess now that I have passed on the responsibility of putting groceries away to my children I have to think like them. Food will not be put away according to use or type but rather by container. Boxes in the cabinet, cans and bottles in the lazy-susan, cold stuff in the fridge and really cold stuff in the freezer. And despite my protests, the olive oil did not make it to the spice cabinet. It's in the lazy-susan. Because it's a bottle, duh.

By George, I think I've got it.