Pigs Feet in My Pantry

Yesterday Dan was microwaving his lunch at work when a woman walked past him into the lunch room, removed his food halfway through its heating cycle and started nuking hers. He was so dumbfounded by this that he just waited for her to finish. When she was done, she left his food on the top of the microwave and walked out without a word.

Sometimes people are just oblivious. I like to imagine that she knew he was there microwaving his food and just felt that her needs were somehow more important, a lunchroom bully, waiting in the hallway for her next victim to begin reheating his leftovers. In reality, she was probably spaced out and didn’t even realize what she was doing.

A few years ago Dan and I had dinner guests who we didn’t know very well. I made some Indian food, a complicated dish requiring a ton of onions. I have zero tolerance for onions and sob like a child every time I come in contact with them.

Some time after the guests had left I walked past a mirror and noticed several inches of black mascara circles running down my face. “DAN! Why didn’t you TELL me I looked like a crazed clown the entire evening?” He had no idea what I was talking about. He came over. “Oh yeah. You do have a little something there.” It’s not that he’s a moron. He’s actually quite a genius. He’s just so used to seeing me a certain way (fabulous goddess of beauty) that he has a hard time noticing when something changes a wee bit.

Which brings me to the pigs feet. A couple of weeks ago I was grocery shopping as I am sometimes wont to do. In between the bottled artichokes (I was making a new dip recipe from Chilihead) and Vienna Sausages (I was keeping my distance) I found a “value pack” of pigs feet. I laughed out loud in the store and placed them in my cart.

Since I’m trying to lose weight and can’t eat all the food I’d like without feeling guilty, I’d rather just buy groceries that make me giggle.

I got them home and placed them in the food cupboard at eye level to see how long it would take Dan to notice them. 52 hours. It takes Dan 52 hours to notice a jar of pigs feet next to the niblets. But I couldn’t stop there. This is too fun.

I decided I would send the feet to anyone willing to play this little game with me. Then Mir started rambling on about liquid/ fragile/ perishable blah blah blah and I rethought my strategy.

It works like this. Go to the store. Buy a bottle of pigs feet (they cost around $4). Put them in an obvious place in a cupboard your spouse will open at least once a week. Email me a picture of the feet but don’t blog it so s/he won’t know what you’re doing. I’ll put a link to your blog on my sidebar with a counter of how long the pigs feet have been sitting there. Fun, yes? Just say yes, okay? I’ll enjoy it because I’m twisted like that.

Someone told me in an email today that I was a “solid example of motherhood” on my blog. Of course I know this is true and never more true than in my Parenting post today. Feel free to go over there and be enriched by my greatness.