Minus Quarter Pounder X 30 = Negative 8

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for MIT School of Weight s, Measures, and Economics

No I have not had a brain transplant, although that might not be a bad idea.  And I haven’t been struck by lightning that suddenly made it possible for me to do quantum physics, calculus, or sixth grade math, but there has definitely been a change in our lives.  Let me explain.

For the past seven years I have made the twice daily trip from our semi-thirty-five-acre-mini-plantation into town delivering and picking up kids and passing Wal-Mart and McDonald’s a minimum of four times a day with frequent stops at both places.  Over this period of time, the clearance aisles at Wal-Mart have slowly made their way to our barn, the shop, and every closet in the house.   Ballet, gymnastics, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, violin lessons, church activities and a tight schedule resulted in fast food becoming a necessity as it was too far to go home and eat and get back in town in time for the next activity.  Those quarter pounders, happy meals, and caffeine/calorie loaded mocha frappes have found their way to my backside resulting in double digit stretch jeans.  Our credit card statement required extra postage.

At the beginning of the school year our children enrolled in a new school.  It is the same distance from our semi-plantation as their old school, but in the opposite direction.  In fact, there is nothing between our house and the new school except pine trees and speed limit signs; no gas stations, no McDonald’s, no Wal-Mart…not even a Dollar Tree. 

Now, because I no longer pass by and stop at  Wal-Mart’s two or three times a day, the clearance items are now more equally available to people who only come to Wal-Mart once or twice a week and our clearance aisle inventory is dwindling.  Since time, distance, cost of speeding tickets and gasoline have increased, we have dropped gymnastics, Girl Scouts, and one set of ballet lessons. 

The biggest change has come in the form of meals.  McDonald’s does not deliver so we have had to rely on my cooking.   Since I am not the World’s Best Cook (I am, however, in the running for Worst Cook Title) we have resorted to more natural foods….bread, peanut butter, honey, apples, bananas…natural foods that require no ovens or forgotten pots on the stove.  Also, because there are no longer four pages of credit card charges to McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, our credit card statement covers only two pages and one stamp.

And that, in a convoluted manner, leads us to the title of this week’s post.  During the first six weeks of school minus Happy Meals, quarter pounders, and mocha frappes, I have lost eight pounds.  The credit card people did call and asked if I had been ill or kidnapped.

I said, “Nope, just going in a different direction.”

Cookie Monster Time!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved to pay off Girl Scout Collection Agency

In any other country if we saw little children peddling chocolate bars door to door so the band can march in the Miss Black Eyed Pea Festival, they would become the new poster child for ending child labor.

Selling products to make money for your child's school has somehow escaped the child labor laws of this country. How many times have we been met at the door by a big eyed waif and the bedraggled parent waving a catalogue of chocolate covered nuts, popcorn, gift boxes, and soap on a rope, all pictured in bright colors and ten times larger than the actual objects? And who wouldn't want to help the school band make it to the Black Eyed Pea Festival?

We never stop to ask and "What percentage of this outrageously priced chocolate bar actually goes to the Black Eyed Pea transportation fund and how much goes to pay for the CEO's condo in Maui?" But now I do.

One time I tried to figure how much the "proud partner with schools" corporation was making off the backs and strollers of school children and their parents. There is no minimum wage paid to the little sales people. The "sales force" is paid in glow-in-the-dark key chains, Frisbees, and stuffed animals, all made in a foreign country. And not every sales child gets one. Most have to sell a quadrillion items to qualify for the stuffed animal. Or, the latest ploy "every child who sells even one item has their name entered in an electronic drawing with the rest of the world for an AM hands-free radio." At least the Boy Scouts let you know up front what percentage of the popcorn sales is going to their troupe.

And now it is time for the annual Girl Scout Cookie Sale. I now understand why Sesame Street has a Cookie Monster. Must have missed the Girl Scout Cookie quota!

I am not surprised that in keeping with the shrinking dollar, so have the size of the cookies and the number of cookies in a package. Still, like eating turkey once a year at Thanksgiving, we will purchase our annual fix of Girl Scout Cookies if for no other reason than to help that little Brownie or Girl Scout earn her cookie badge and to try for the coveted "charm" for most cookie sales by a girl scout. Still, it makes you wonder how little Angelina Marie, age 6, could manage to sell 2,573 boxes of cookies all by herself and still go to school five days a week. Me thinks there may be family connections there, selling cookies on behalf of little Angelina Marie!

I know the rationale behind selling cookies: teaches confidence, business sense, advertising, teamwork, money management, targeting audience, tracking inventory, profit margin, but I believe I learned all that with my Kool-Aid stand and I only charged 5 cents a glass.

After applying all my business sense, figuring gas mileage, time spent, and interest paid on my Bass Pro Shop issued Visa credit card, I will come out ahead if I buy 8 cases of cookies myself. Then I can teach my Kool-Aid business skills to my ten-teen by setting her up a stand on the side of the road to peddle her Girl Scout cookies.

Course it will be just like the government to ask for a business license, health certificate, IRS WD 40 form, building inspection, and permit to operate a business in a residential area.

But I won't be guilty of violating child labor laws!

Miss Manners in the Dining Room with a Butter Knife

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for an Emily Post Rewrite

My nine-year-old's Girl Scout troop had been trying for a month to arrange etiquette lessons from a local Miss Manners but scheduling never worked out. As a recovering former Teacher-I-Can-Fix-Anything, I momentarily fell off the teaching wagon and offered to teach a concentrated lesson in table manners at my house. After all, I did have a dining room, dining chairs, and dishes. The fact that I can't cook is irrelevant. I even had my wedding silverware, antique silverware by now, and I had learned how to fold napkins on one of our cruises. What could be easier?

I got the extra leaf to the dining table out from under the bed. After I wedged the leaf into the table, it was only unlevel by a quarter inch in the center. I'd just put a piece of cardboard under that placemat to even things out. I rounded up all the dining chairs from the various rooms. The seat covers all matched except for one which I never got around to recovering. I bought three more placemats after I discovered the dryer had eaten just one. I have three almost complete sets of china thanks to oatmeal, Texaco gas stations, laundry detergent and green stamps. These are also considered antiques by now. After reviewing "Betty Crocker Entertainment Made Easy" I saw that it was ok to mix and match dishes. She, of course, meant it's ok to mix eight matching bread plates with eight different matching dinner plates but I didn't read that part until later…after everyone had gone. So between the three sets of china, I had service for eight.

The silverware was a different story. Yes, I had service for eight but only one butter knife, an integral part to my lesson on "tear off one piece of bread, butter, and eat, then repeat" segment of Miss Manners At the Banquet Table. I substituted plastic knifes. This was just practice, you know.

Since my teaching method has always been to "teach backwards", I piled up all the dishes, chargers, silverware, stemware, napkins, and place cards in the middle of the table. I then instructed them to "set the table." Chargers were placed on top of dinner plates, cups, saucers stacked to the left and the silverware was placed inside the stemware. Napkins lay limply to the side. Clearly time for Miss Manners intervention. I had prepared a poster with the correct place setting glued on…which fell off the minute I held it up for the girls to see. The table was finally set, amidst muffled giggles.

One of the moms served the bread using bread tongs which is my case were some pickle tongs I had found in the back of a drawer. I had wanted to cut the butter into little serving squares and stamp them with an initial like you see at fancy hotels, so I placed the butter in the freezer. Thirty minutes later I remembered the butter and began hacking the butter stick into squares using a butcher knife. Forget the fancy initial unless you are thinking Chinese/caveman hieroglyphics.

Having conquered the bread and butter, we moved on to serving coffee. I forgot I didn't have a silver coffee carafe, probably because I never had one, so I just used my Mr. Coffee pot. The girls practiced turning their coffee cups upside down to indicate they did not want coffee; except for one little girl. "May I have some coffee, please?" she asked. "No, coffee is not good for you; besides the pot is empty. We are pretending practicing remember?" I countered.

On to the main course. The object was to practice using a knife and fork correctly, both the American way and the European way. I served filet-of-wiener; that's a wiener cut down the middle with a bit of cheese in the middle and heated in the oven, not much chance of me messing that up. It was a big success, the filet-of-wiener, not the cutting and forking. That needed more practice.

After correctly placing the knife and fork on the plate in the three o'clock position, the mom-servers removed the plates from the right and served my very elegant dessert from the left; that being the ice cream-on-sponge-cake-with-whipped-cream-and-a-strawberry-on top. The "I'm allergic to strawberries" comment initiated the lesson on how to move food around on your plate and not eat it while holding meaningful conversation and no you cannot ask for substitutions at a banquet.

This led us into table talk. Topics of conversation could not involve body parts, bodily functions, bodily sounds, gossip, or comments on my cooking or décor.

It was a very quiet meal…mannerly but quiet.

Miss Manners would be so proud.