Deanna and I were eating potato chips together one day out of the bag. She reached in and grabbed a few chips.
"Hey!" I yelled. "You got the chip I wanted!"
Deanna looked at me and shook her head.
"Mama, that is so weird!"
"What's weird," I asked.
"YOU! Wanting a specific chip!"
"Well, it had a lot of barbecue seasoning on it and I had picked it out. It was going to be my next chip."
"It's just weird that you always look at the chips in the bag, then carefully choose ONE," she said.
I hadn't thought about that and it caught me a little by surprise.
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Well, whenever you eat chips - EVERY time you eat chips - you examine every chip, then choose ONE from the bag or bowl. It's so weird. Who DOES that? People just grab a handful of chips and eat them. But not you! You examine every chip carefully, then choose just one. Mama, people don't 'PICK' their chips. They just EAT them."
I really had never thought about that before. But she's right. I examine my chips - always! I don't know why - I guess it's because, if I'm going to waste those calories, I want to be sure I get the best of the chips in the bag. I suppose it IS a little weird, and she's right, most people don't examine their chips. But I always have. One of those quirks of my personality, I guess. I'm particular, even about my potato chips. I do the same thing with popcorn. If I share popcorn with the children at a movie, I get real upset with them because they just GRAB! I take one kernel at a time, eat all the little pokey parts off it, then eat the center. I nibble on it, kernel by kernel. Don learned while we were courting to always buy me my own popcorn, cause it drove me crazy that he'd just GRAB!!!
I took my mother to a doctor's appointment yesterday (so, does it seem like I dramatically changed subjects?) and one of my sisters was going to pick her up there and take her over to another sister's house to work on my niece's wedding invitations. Before Mom and Toni left, we all sat in Toni's car for a few minutes to visit. We got to talking about the SHAPE High School Reunion Toni, my brother, Chuck, and I went to a few weekends ago in Myrtle Beach. It was so interesting getting to have that time with Chuck and watching him interact with people that went to high school with him. His old cohorts in crime.
Toni and I were telling my mom a story about how, when we left the Reunion on Sunday, we walked under the house (the house was on stilts and there was parking underneath. My brother had parked his motorcycle underneath the stairs. Toni and I had parked across the street on the road.) to where Chuck had his motorcycle and stood with him while he got ready to go. Several women had gathered around him and were visiting and oohing and aahing about his bike - just like in high school. It was so funny to watch. Here are these women, in their mid-50's, Chuck is 55, and it was like they were teenagers again. They fell right back into those years. Chuck with his harem. He always had girls gathered around him back then. He was cool, very smart, handsome, and didn't date just one girl. One of the gals that knew him back them referred to him as a "freelancer". So, he was available, and fun to flirt with. And, boy, was he ever a chick magnet. The girls ALWAYS gathered around him. It was no different at the Reunion.
Toni and I stood, just outside the little circle of women, watching with smiles on our faces. Chuck, in his element. It was fun telling Mom the story, too.
"How long did it take Chuck to get ready to leave?" she asked.
Toni and I rolled our eyes and laughed spontaneously.
"You would NOT believe how long it took him to get geared up!" we both responded. He had a knit facemask he put on, then his helmet, then gloves. You would think those 3 things could be applied quickly, but, no! Everytime we stopped, it took Chuck a good 10 minutes to get everything back in place again. The facemask had to be just SO, then he gingerly applied his helmet and made sure his glasses and face shield were clean. Then the gloves, which took forever. Honestly, it took him a good 10 minutes to get ready to go.
Toni said, "You've never seen a production like this before, Mom. First, he had to shake everything out. Then, very slowly and carefully, he examined each item. Then he'd shake them out again. Finally, he'd begin to put them on! It was unbelievable."
"Just like Daddy," Mama said. Have you ever watched Daddy take off his socks?"
We all laughed. All three of us are very familiar with the routine Daddy goes through to undress. Yep, Chuck's just like him - slow, meticulous, seemingly about things that really don't matter that much.
Sound like somebody we know with potato chips? At least I can claim I got it honestly. Blame Daddy!
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