Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

This post is heavily influenced by my daughter, who shall be nameless, and who is deeply principled in certain ways. As you will see.

I’m working from home and I get hungry, so I mosey to the kitchen to make a sandwich. The family diet, and therefore the family grocery list, has been slowly but forcefully shaped in recent years by my daughter’s veganism, so I know there will be no sandwich meat. 

I am thinking that peanut butter will work and I know we will have that. Obviously, if you don’t eat meat, you need to get protein in other ways. Nuts are a good source; for sure there will be peanut butter.

I search but, surprisingly, no peanut butter. I do find some eggs, some wacky bread with lots of seeds, and some avocados. Guess that’ll do.

I approach the sink to prep the avocado and I find an empty peanut butter jar. Mystery solved! It has been placed there for thorough cleaning, in strict accordance with recommended recycling guidelines.  My daughter intends to save the planet so we have all learned to follow these recycling guidelines meticulously. That’s fine.

Also near the sink, probably attracted by the scent of peanut butter, is a fairly large fly. It is buzzing around and generally annoying me, but I cannot kill it because, over the course of her childhood, my daughter has deeply sensitized me to the value of all life. I get it.

I resign myself to the much more difficult task of capturing the fly and relocating it to a more suitable habitat in the backyard. I unscrew the lid of the peanut butter jar to begin cleaning it while contemplating capture plans. Miraculously, the fly is attracted to the open container and I easily trap it inside with a quick recapping maneuver. I release him in the yard and watch helplessly as he flies back toward the house. When I return, I find him on the sink. Sigh.

I pop a cup of water into the microwave so that I can rinse the peanut butter jar with scalding liquid prior to recycling. When the water is ready, I move to pour it into the jar but, at the same instant, the ever-annoying fly buzzes into the action, gets caught in the liquid downspout, and dies an unfortunate death in the frothy peanut butter soup.

So I tried to eat a vegan sandwich in accordance with my daughter’s dietary recommendations, but lack of supplies forced me to go with an egg. I tried to relocate the fly in accordance with my daughter’s doctrine of respect for all life, but I accidentally killed it.

At least I was able to support my daughter’s efforts to save the planet by recycling a pristine peanut butter jar. Question for Meatloaf: What is one out of three...?