Relative Something

I have repeatedly forgotten to tell a tale about something that played out way back in October, when we were packing to move out of our old house. Yesterday’s post about my precious cereal bowl has finally reminded me to also share this:

Years ago I heard Cyndie commenting about a special pan she liked that her mom had up at the cabin. It was in the summertime and Cyndie had suggested it would be a good Christmas present for her.

It was a double-burner griddle that she was especially fond of. Since she likes to cook using the pan, and I like to eat the things she cooks, it occurred to me that I didn’t really need to wait until Christmas. In fact, since Christmas and birthdays have acquired such obvious expectations for gift giving, I have a strong contrarian interest in doing the opposite, like, giving a gift on a day with absolutely no expectation for one.

I seized the opportunity to order the exact pan Cyndie liked so much, and surprised her with a completely unexpected late-July present.

It was a huge hit, and I reaped many benefits from giving it to her. Definitely a win-win situation all around.

Two summers ago, when Cyndie broke her knee, she began using a cleaning service to help take care of things around the house. After the passing of some time, when she was up and at ’em again, and working in the kitchen, she reported that her pan was missing. After exhausting all other possibilities, she contacted the cleaners to see if they had any memory of having put the pan away somewhere that Cyndie was overlooking.

They had no memory of the pan.

That led to even more exhaustive searches, and some far-fetched hypothesis of who else might have ‘borrowed’ it, however unlikely it seemed. When the pan was finally given up for lost, the unfortunate possibility that one of the cleaners took it, seemed to linger as the only logical explanation.

Last October, when the entire house was being packed up and cleaned out, I received a message from Cyndie. Hooray! She found her missing pan in the bottom of a drawer in the kitchen, beneath enough items that it was completely out of sight.

The wrongly accused cleaning crew were taken off the “evil-doers” list, and Cyndie humbly admitted recognizing that she had been the one to place the pan in the bottom of that drawer. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

I cannot hold her in contempt for her actions. It made for a good story. Plus, the times that I have stowed something in a special place, and then promptly forgotten where I put it, or what the item was, or even that the item ever existed, are too numerous to count.

We are just happy to have her favorite pan back in action, once again.