What to Do... What to Do?

A question.

Based entirely on a hypothetical situation, of course.

Let's say you're on a budget in your house, and you blow it one pay period. Not on totally irrelevant or extravagant stuff, like a new car. But on actual needed items, like shorts for the upcoming summer and $4 corduroy pants that just could no longer remain hanging out at Kohl's, not even one more minute.

And let's further conjecture that your husband does not blow his stack, but instead asks you quite nicely to put off your grocery shopping trip for only four more days, until his next paycheck clears into your joint checking account.

Stay with me.

You agree to your spouse's suggestion, because you have calculated what is in the cupboards at home, and you realize your least favorite old standby is ready in the wings to fulfill its only role in life. To save money as a last resource.



Now let's pretend you don't like soup beans. Because in the house where you were raised they were called Pinto beans. And nothing bearing the name Pinto has ever been good. It's a fact. Look it up. (Hey, just because you don't believe it, doesn't make it wrong!).

Ford Pinto cars, for example. Metallic junk, really. Not much better for driving than strapping tires on an over-sized Coke can and wheeling down the highway.

Pinto horses. Now, I'm not an expert on things in the equine world, but Britannica Encyclopedia says that "the Indian ponies of the western United States were often Pintos, and the type was often considered of poor quality. The pure-breed associations usually refuse to register horses with pinto colouring." (To be fair, it goes on to say, "The colour does not determine the type of horse, however, and many fine Pintos have been developed." But that doesn't go along with what I'm writing, so let's forget that part. This is all pretend anyway.)

In any case, in your mind, the equation is simple. Pinto = Bad.

But you are willing to eat soup beans, as your husband's family has always called them, when desperate times call for desperate measures. And only because they are always served with cornbread and huge, heaping helpings of homemade mac and cheese. Anything tastes better accompanied by mac and cheese.

So, one night, during your half week of near fasting to keep your budget from completely bombing, you pat yourself on the back. This self-congratulations is due to your remembering to soak the dried beans overnight, instead of the quick-soak method you generally employ the morning of the day you intend to partake.

You pull out your ginormous, four-pound bag of Pinto beans and start sorting, picking out any itty-bitty stones you find and all half beans. You don't discriminate against the half bean for any good reason. Nobody has ever told you to pick out the half beans. But they seem offensive somehow, so they are discarded.

You are about three handfuls into the job when your exceptionally large bag of beans topples over, emptying nearly all 10,000 beans onto your kitchen floor.

And so, back to my question, which I will now put before you.

What do you do?

Shovel those little suckers back into the bag and toss the whole thing in the trash? Because, in reality... they're cheap. You probably paid $3.50 for the whole slew of 'em.

Or...

Do you continue picking out stones, while kneeling on your floor, the whole time thinking such thoughts as, "It's a good thing I swept this area just two hours ago," and "What they don't know won't hurt them," and "I'm so glad my in-laws aren't coming to dinner tomorrow"?

And finally, do you realize, you've seen your kids eat all manner of nastiness that can't possibly compare. Half sucked lollipops that you put in their hand to keep them occupied while you trimmed their toddler hair; suckers that they kept popping back into their mouths even though with every snip of your scissors, the suckers got hairier. ABC gum that has leaped out of their mouths onto the dirt at the playground, and yet the new grainy texture did not seem to bother your offspring. And how many times did you see your allergy prone baby slip his tongue onto his snot-slicked upper lip for just a small taste?

Ahhh, the problem comes to mind. Can you do this to your husband? Can you keep this secret, that his supper was strewn across the kitchen floor not 24 hours before it sat in front of him in a steaming bowl?

What to do... what to do?

I said this was all hypothetical, didn't I?