Nature abhors a vacuum.
That must be why, weeks after clearing the kitchen cabinets of clutter, I felt a sudden urge to jump in the car in an obsessive search for a deviled egg carrier.
Or maybe it was a delayed adolescent rebellion against my gadget-hating mother.
Or simply the fact that I am tired of lining cake pans with wads of wax paper and hoping for the best.
Whatever the reason, I was suddenly sure that a deviled egg carrier would make my life better.
It requires enormous rationalization to quiet the audiotape of a deceased parent counseling against an ill-advised purchase.
“Gadgets!” mine said. “Your aunt wastes so much money on them!”
I scoured the shelves of Aunt Cora’s kitchen 50+ years before, looking for a deviled egg carrier. None in sight.
Obviously, mom was referring to some less useful gadget – an egg separator maybe – and not one that would save miles of wax paper over a lifetime. Not one that would transport the cheapest, most popular potluck contribution ever.
Still I bargained with her. “OK. I’m setting a limit. Ten bucks.”
“And,” I added, “it can’t take much shelf space.”
With that, mom shut up. Possibly, she even set things in motion for what happened next: the appearance of a space-saving, double-decker egg carrier with handle for $9.95.
“I’ll take it!” I said, and headed joyously to the car.
The next day, I felt like the Easter bunny arriving at a family potluck, eggs in tow.
“I bet you could keep adding layers to this thing,” admired my gadget-loving son. “It’s so awesome!”
My daughter, cramped for space at grad school, claimed serious envy.
“Someday, when I’m living in a house, I’m going to get one of those,” she said. “A cake carrier, too.”
I cheered her on. “You might want to go ahead with the egg carrier.” I said. “It’ll save you soooo much money.” I wanted her audiotape to go easy.
My husband, standing by during weeks of my obsessive clutter-clearing, seemed a tad skeptical.
“So now you’re adding?” he asked.
But he seemed completely OK with my explanation, which was “Since I’ve been eliminating all the things that don’t ‘spark joy,’ now I have room for the things that do.”
Just to be sure, I added a post-purchase revelation: “You can remove the little egg shelves and voila! It’s a muffin or cupcake carrier.”
I think that’s right, although the muffins would have to be a little on the short side and the cupcakes couldn’t have icing. But definitely a muffin top carrier. And absolutely a cookie carrier, although admittedly carrying cookies was never much of a problem. Come to think of it, neither were cupcakes or muffins.
So I’m glad he didn’t point any of that out, and I’m glad I didn’t raise any of that with my mom, who would have absolutely seen through it.
But if I had…and she had, I know I could have still carried the day with “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
I learned that from her.
2016 Copyright Pat Snyder
