It’s February 2019. The basement is flooded with snowmelt, the kids have cabin fever, and I’m raising the white flag. With two hours to go until dinner, it’s time to hit up the basement fridge where the cheat foods are stored. “Cheat foods” are tasty, quick to prep, and nutritionally void. Tonight they will also be dinner.
I open the fridge door and behold dinner deliverance in the form of two cans of Pillsbury refrigerated biscuits. I say “dinner deliverance” because the family will scarf down any dish that’s topped by, based on, or dotted with biscuits.
So I grab the biscuit cans, blithely head back upstairs. and set the cans on the kitchen counter, serene in the knowledge that meal prep will be a breeze.
An hour later, however, I re-enter the kitchen to find an opened biscuit can extruding dough onto the counter like a Play-Doh Fun Factory.
Now, when I was a kid, I was fascinated by food packaging that did unexpected things. Like the Jiffy Pop popcorn topper that would swell and burst. And the Kretschmer’s Wheat Germ lid that, when loosened, would create a vacuum that made the wheat germ dance. It’s a rare kid who can resist the urge to smack a Pillsbury tube against the counter edge and watch the dough ooze out. I get it.
But dinner is hanging in the balance. And the only thing that’s “poppin’ fresh” is my teen son’s attitude. “Hey Mom, maybe you opened the can yourself and you don’t remember,” he says with a smirk.
That does it. I gather the kids into the living room, where they will sit and listen to me sermonize until the culprit confesses or the final trumpet sounds, whichever comes first. And then we hear it: a dull popping sound coming from the kitchen, prompting a youthful chorus of “I’ll go see what that was.”
“No, I’ll go see what that was,” I say. I walk into the kitchen to find the second tube of biscuits come undone, a couple of doughy fugitives lying on the kitchen counter, and another one splatted on the floor.
Evidently, this biscuit tube – and it could be assumed, the one that exploded earlier – had depressurized and burst without any assistance from mischievous, young thrill-seekers.
I go back into the living room and tell the kids that they are off the hook. I apologize for blaming them for something they didn’t do, and for assuming that they were not being truthful. The kids are miffed but forgiving. Mostly miffed, though.
Author and podcaster Father Dwight Longenecker asks, “Have you ever stopped to think that Christianity is the only religion in which the first step is to say, ‘I’m wrong?’” The first message that comes from Jesus [in] the Gospel is: “Repent!”
The uncomfortable truth is that we are all sinners. We are all going to misjudge, jump to conclusions, or “lose it” over something trivial. We may squirm at the thought of looking foolish once our mess-up is revealed, or even try to make excuses for our behavior. After all, it’s not easy to say, “I was wrong.” But it’s necessary because, according to Father Longenecker, “It is only as we admit that we’re wrong that we’re right.”
“We should wear our ashes with a kind of joyful abandon this Ash Wednesday,” Father advises. “Let us wear them like a gray badge of courage. They are not the mark of the beast, but the mark of the best; for only the best can say, ‘I am the worst.’”
Amen to that!
By Celeste Behe, Catholic speaker and writer, and a parishioner of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, Hellertown. Find her online at www.CelesteBehe.com.
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