"Utensils, The Who, and Plastic Soul..."

Mom's Stash...

A Google + friend, Katrina Szatmari, mentioned The Who song entitled, "Substitute," and it sent her mind back to the days when plasticware was washed and re-used. It got my mind reeling over the song, AND the days of the "fifties" anxieties, which in some, still exists.

We grew up French Catholic in New Orleans, and I guess we were considered middle class. We were taught never to waste food and the story of the starving children of "pick your favorite third world country" always reverberated in my head. Even as a kid, I understood the value of that lesson.

But, in elementary school, the nuns, thinking we were gonna be at war with someone, eventually, taught us to never throw anything away. Back then, it probably was those insidious and God-less communists, trying to get us to use up all of our resources for the big takeover. 

Damn God-less things!

Top that 'tude with my mother's WWII scraps for victory, the by-product of rationing and the depression, our household, today, is still shoulder deep in plastic tops with missing containers, ziplock bags, safety pins, bobbi pins, rubber bands and paper clips... and plastic utensils. Knives and forks and spoons of all shapes and sizes and of every color. Some uselessly bent or broken. I even found plastic silverware so lifelike it was found in our silverware drawer. 

Of course, it is not always my mother's fault. My wife, occasionally brings various forms of plasticware home from school when there's a classroom birthday party, or from a fast food establishment having to eat lunch on the run! But, it seems lately, every time I pick my mom up from the senior community center, where she enjoys lunch with her friends,  her pockets are full of sugar and Sweet-n-Low packets, salt and pepper, butter or margarine packs, napkins and, of course, plastic utensils wrapped in napkins and stuffed in her used styrofoam coffee cup.

And she becomes indignant whenever I inquire about her "booty." 

To make matters a bit more interesting, she suffers from memory loss. If I don't distract her to somehow confiscate her pilfered pockets of the goodies, I'll find them later stuffed in bathroom drawers, medicine cabinets, shoes, dresser drawers, kitchen and desk drawers and even, the refrigerator. 

The worse, though, is finding them, too late, in the washing machine. What a mess!

The Who, had it right. I may not have been born with a plastic spoon in my mouth, but...

"The simple things you see are all complicated, 
I look pretty young... but I'm just back-dated, yeah "

Gotta love it...

Copyright 2013/ Ben Bensen III