Another Side-Thorn Contention-Bone Served Up By Farmer H

When we last convened, Farmer H had been gifted with some Santa beets. Yeah. So much for leaving out cookies and milk these days. Gotta get rid of that evil sugar, and serve Santa something suitable for a school lunch. Well. Except for his other gift he got at the same time from the same family: a blackberry cobbler.

Let the record show that I did not take a picture of that blackberry cobbler. I have nothing against a blackberry cobbler. My grandma (both of them) used to make them all the time. When I was a tiny little Future Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, I'd accompany my mom and her mother to some acreage that my grandpa leased from a lead-mining company. Surface rights only, you know. I have no idea what Grandpa planned to do with that land. Maybe he just wanted it so Grandma could pick blackberries there. They were plentiful.

I remember sitting on my little wooden step-stool, sweltering under the sun, smelling the wild weeds, hearing various insects, waiting for Mom and Grandma to fill up a tall Tupperware container with a black rubber handle attached. I don't know what that container was for. Surely not for holding fresh-picked blackberries. But they each had one, and some other bowls and buckets, and filled them pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure my sister the Little Future Ex-Mayor's Wife was there, too, whining on her own step-stool, her red hair all matted and sweaty down the back of her neck. The metal rat-tailed comb was not her friend.

Anyhoo...my grandmas made their cobbler in a long glass pan, like a 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. They weren't foolin'! Now THAT was a cobbler. To feed a family, I guess. Farmer H's was just to feed himself. Let the record show that he isn't supposed to have sugar.

Farmer H came in with that cobbler, commenting that it had spilled all over his jacket in the car. THE CAR! He'd been driving my Acadia! A-Cad! The one I keep on reserve, protected, in the garage. Farmer H declared that none of the gooey cobbler innards got on A-Cad's beige leather seats. Only on his jacket, which he needed to wash. But I didn't see the jacket. I was skeptical, but didn't want to think of the alternative.

I didn't take a picture of that cobbler because it was messy. Juice all down the side. I told Farmer H not to put it in FRIG II unless he cleaned up the bottom, or put it on a plate. Being Farmer H, he did not want to do that, or have me tell him what to do, or clean out enough room on the top shelf to fit it. So he put it on the cutting block and left it.

He ate a piece that night. So I saw it the next day, a wedge missing, but all the innards leaked out into the opening. Which didn't make me want to try it. Even though Farmer H never offered it to me. There it sat, in the way of making a batch of Chex Mix for The Pony to take back for his college friends. In the way of groceries carried in to put away. In the way of baking two Oreo cakes. I told Farmer H that I didn't know how long that cobbler would last, sitting out like that, without even a covering of Glad Wrap tossed over it. He said it would be fine.

Then I came home from town on Thursday, and saw THIS.

Let the record show that upon interrogation and cross-examination, Farmer H revealed that he was done with his cobbler, and he'd washed the pan. WASHED THE PAN!

Let the record further show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had been washing (by hand, you know) three sinkfuls of dishes daily, what with getting her holiday goodies ready and pre-prepped.

"So let me get this right...you washed that ONE PAN, but left the other stuff on the counter for me to wash later?"

"No. There wasn't nothin' else there."

"I know there was. The cake pans! I had to move your cobbler out of the way when I set my cakes on racks balanced on top of my big copper-bottom soup pot and black speckled soup pot. In fact, I was leery of leaving them on the cutting block, because I was afraid you would go to get some cobbler, and hit the racks, and dump my cakes so I'd have to make more."

"No. You'd already cleaned up. I came in for lunch when you left, and ate some cobbler, and then threw out the rest and washed the pan. There was only a couple of forks on the counter."

"I don't think so! I didn't go to town until my cakes were out of the pans. I didn't wash the pans before I left, because I knew I'd have the stuff from icing them, and the bowl I had the Oreo crumbs in to garnish the tops."

"No. All that was there was a couple of forks."

Still. Who can't wash a couple of forks when he's only cleaning a single dish?