A Five-Dollar Daughter, an Ex-Mayor's Wife, and a Pony Walk Into a 2400-Square-Foot Brick Split-Level House

What? You were expecting a punchline? Patience, my friends, patience.

I met my sister the ex-mayor's wife at Mom's house this morning, with The Pony along to do some heavy lifting. The plan for today was to empty out the nonperishable foodstuffs from the kitchen and pantry, and to sort out Mom's closet. The dispensation of the safe contents took us a month of Tuesdays. I was not anticipating a swift completion of this task.

VAL: "I only have a couple of good hours in me. Let's get crackin'. Does it have to be so HOT in here?"

SIS: "When I came in, the thermostat was set for heat. Look. It's 80 degrees. I hit that button, trying to get the air conditioning menu, but the screen went blank. Do you know how to set it?"

VAL: "Ha ha ha! It's ELECTRONIC! How would I know how it works?"

SIS: "Pony? Can you do it? Did you see how Grandma used to set it?"

PONY: "Maybe. If the screen wasn't BLANK!"

SIS: "Look! It's doing this countdown from 30. It's either going to come back on screen, or it's going to explode."

PONY: "There it is. All you do is push that arrow there until you get to the temperature you want."

SIS: "I'm pushing it, but it's not doing anything! It stays on 80."

PONY: "Yes it is! 80 is the TEMPERATURE right now. See? It's going down. What do you want it on?

SIS: "I don't know. What do you think? 71? 70?"

VAL: "YES! I have to put mine on 73 at home. This will be great!"

I knew that if I worked anywhere near Sis, we would have to reminisce about each item. So I suggested that Sis and The Pony clean out the cupboards, and I would go to Mom's closet and go through the pockets of the clothing, just in case, and lay items out for donation to a local ministerial thrift store. Sis agreed. She volunteered to work on the pantry down in the family room, The Pony took the main level kitchen cabinets, and I headed upstairs to the bedroom.

SIS: "It is SO hot in here! I just took a shower, and now I'm sweating! This is terrible!"

PONY: "I know. I'm sweating, too. The temperature has dropped two degrees, though. It's down to 78."

SIS: "Your mom must be really hot up there in the bedroom!"

VAL: "YES I AM! It is REALLY hot up here!"

SIS: "What did she say? WHAT? We can't hear you down here. The air conditioner is blowing!"

I tried to pretend she was just stating a fact, not reveling in her air-conditionedness. We soldiered on. Every now and then, I heard Sis and The Pony consulting on whether to throw something away. I had no trouble hearing THEM, you see, because I did not have the air conditioner blowing on me. I imagine the vents were closed upstairs. I had already told Sis that I had no interest in any of the food, and as far as I was concerned, we could trash it all and not debate on whether we wanted each item, or if a food pantry might want it. Let the record show that Mom had not been shopping since her original seizure the day before Thanksgiving, and she passed away the first week of February. Sis and I had been picking up things as she needed them, and they were consumed. So anything left had been there a while.

After cleaning out a whole half of a double closet, I had stacked up 5 blazers, 8 skorts, 15 skirts, 38 blouses, 18 dresses, 12 pairs of pants, and 28 pairs of shoes. I didn't get to Mom's church clothes yet, in the closet in Sis's old bedroom across the hall. For all my trouble searching through the pockets, I found five pennies, and a scrap of paper with assorted kids' names written in red ink.

Sis and The Pony gathered 7 large bags of trash, 10 Walmart bags of paper products suitable for Sis's camper, a case of green beans, a tub of canned goods, 9 bags of pecans, 3 large boxes of cereal suitable for Chex Mix-ing, 4 bottles of vegetable oil, a round red-glass bottle labeled Pure Cooking Vanilla From Mexico (complete with a piece of Saran Wrap [I'm sure it was Saran, because it was SO old] held in by a cork). The oldest items were a toss-up between a jar of indeterminate spice labeled 1977, and a 4-gallon jar of dill pickles home-canned by my grandma. She made really good pickles! They looked okay...but I don't plan to try them. Hick will want the jar.

Still looking for that punch line? We're getting closer.

After settling the division of the spoils, and agreeing that Hick and The Pony would come back tomorrow morning to load up the stuff and dispose of it...Sis related this detail.

"The Pony and I cleaned out everything in the basement deep-freeze. That's where we got the pecans. We were throwing out freezer-burned ice cream and old boxes of frozen food, and we came to a loaf of bread. It was wrapped in SIX plastic Walmart bags. 'Oh!' we thought. 'This must be something special.' You know, how people hide their money and valuables in the freezer? Especially after the house was broken into that time, and Dad lost his guns and coins? So we carefully unwrapped each of those six bags. Then we opened up the loaf of bread and took out each slice and looked between them. Every single slice. And do you know what was in there? NOTHING BUT BREAD! Mom must have really been worried about freezer burn! I can't believe we spent all that time on a loaf of bread."

There you have it.

A Five-Dollar Daughter, an Ex-Mayor's Wife, and a Pony Walk Into a 2400-Square-Foot Brick Split-Level House...and their Mom/Grandma has the last laugh over a loaf of bread.

Yeah, Mom. You got us good!