Considering a life of crime

Yes, today I have been considering a life of crime. I take complete responsibility for even entertaining such a notion. Clearly, I'm a step up from the average criminal, though: I am willing to take responsibility for my actions rather than blaming someone else for causing me to be a bad person, which then caused me to consider being a criminal.

Here's what happened. I drove Annie to school this morning. As we simultaneously open the car doors, a rank odor permeated the garage. "Ewww. Mom. What is that?" My weenie little heart sinks. The likewise weenie little brain recollects that I had gone grocery shopping yesterday. Liz's weenie brain plus grocery purchases in the past 24 hours sometimes equals a rank odor, signifying groceries left to fester in the trunk.

Now, was this completely my weenie brain's fault? Well, that depends on your perspective. Bringing in groceries is a family affair. All hands on deck. I call to alert the family that I am on my way and expect to be met at the garage with willing hearts and strong shoulders.

Stop laughing. It actually happens fairly often.

Yesterday was no different than other grocery days. I called. Carl answered. Jonathan came and helped. I tend to leave return trips to the car to my helpers while I unpack the treasures. I tell my family that this is because I know where everything goes. The truth is that this subterfuge allows me time to hide anything really good from the voracious young man who eats us out of house and home.

Thus occupied with hiding the candy corn, I didn't notice that Jonathan didn't bring in the bag that had $50 worth of meat in it, leaving it to overnight in the 50 degree car producing the morning rankness. Now, wouldn't it be easy for me to blame Jonathan for this? He did, after all, leave the meat in the car. As much as I'd like to foist responsibility onto his broad shoulders so that his dad will be ticked at him instead of me for wasting that much money, it really wasn't his fault.

In my infinite wisdom, I'd stuck them inside the refrigerator bag in the trunk. Wanted to protect that meat as I was going to make a money-saving Walgreens stop. But I didn't close the refrigerator bag, and it looked empty. Nor did I tell Jonathan to check the bag, as I don't usually use it so he would have no reason to check it.

Hence the stinky morning encounter. After I dropped Annie off, I retrieved the expensive smelly bag and stuck it in the fridge. In a flight of fancy, I emailed my feminist moms list, pleading with them to reveal a hitherto unknown method for saving meat that has gone bad. No such luck.

But before I tossed the smelly bag, I entertained my criminal thought. I noticed that I still had the grocery store receipt. And the weenie brain was suddenly ablaze with a money-saving notion: I could take the meat back and claim it was bad, not mentioning the fact that the meat had spent the night at 50+ degrees.

I confess that I considered this criminal act for at least 15 seconds. In my defense, it was a lot of meat. Two huge pork tenderloins and a roast beast. No matter that the pork tenderloins were BOGO (bet you didn't know that I speak fluent frugal housewife) so I'd only paid $30 for $50 worth of meat.

More importantly, my occasional forgetfulness is legend in this house. I am known to search for my glasses and find them on my head. Or Annie's face. Which is in front of my own face. It was to save face that I considered crime: I hate adding to my own legend.

After due consideration (ok, it might have been 30 seconds), I firmly carried the stinky meat out to the garbage can and tossed it. Aren't you proud of me? Not only did I reject a life of crime; I'm sure that by tomorrow morning I will have made at least one city varmint a very happy--and full--creature.

Liz