My Pantry

So last week I was a puppeteer in a puppet show for the kids at camp. It's always a mystery what might happen during these events. We aren't professionals which is very clear to our audience, but rather we are all good friends working together for one common goal - to make each other humiliated. We each take turns achieving that goal. There are too many "goals" to reproduce here on paper so I will only share the ultimate "goal" which I believe cannot be topped. In this show there are puppets and "real people". You know, kind of like a "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" show, except interesting. There are two puppets of which I am one. My husband is one of the "people" in the show. There is a basic script which we are to follow but according to the puppets is most certainly optional. The theme of the show varies day to day but always has a spiritual point. It often takes a while to get to the spiritual point because the puppets aren't very controllable, much to the "real people's" dismay. Now hopefully you get the gist of what we're trying to do here. On this particular day the script tells us that my husband, a "person", and another "person" are to rummage through a sack filled with snacks for the puppets and the "people" to take to a baseball tryout. Prior to the show I was given the task of filling the sack with snacks and items of my choice that we could take to the tryout. So at home I filled the bag with all sorts of interesting things that would spur on conversation between me, the puppet, and my husband, the "person", during the show. In my rush to fill the bag with worthy items I added in a bag of dried figs. Well, fortunately for the show and for me, I was in a hurry and didn't have time to look into this bag of figs because nothing could have been better orchestrated than what happened next. We are at the scene where my husband, the "person", is rifling through the sack of snacks, etc. He pulls out varying items I choose especially for that scene. Snacks that "just don't belong here" - Sesame Street style, things like cans of tomatoes, flashlights, books, chocolate chips - because the puppet likes to cook - you get the idea. Then comes the moment - the figs - my husband, the "person", looks at the bag of figs and questions me, the puppet, about the purpose in the figs. He gripes about the necessity of this kind of snack and "whatever the point may be" and then without me being able to see, because I'm behind the puppet stage, he decides to eat one of the figs. Now it became very clear to all of us that he had never eaten a fig, or for that matter never seen, smelled, touched or even handled a dried fig before. He ate it, thought it a little dry and shriveled, but carried on with the script. He was in a conversation with another "person" and as they were talking he reached into the bag and grabbed another one to pop into his mouth. It must have been so delicious he couldn't resist another. But before he could eat another delicious dried treat the other "person" looks down and cries out "Is that a worm?" Right there in his hand, crawling in and out of the fig, was a live worm. Here we must pause. OK, it is very clear to us that he had never eaten, seen, smelled, touched or handled a dried fig before because upon closer inspection and even distant inspection the fig was moldy, dried up, shriveled, crusty.....yum. My poor ill- cuisined husband. So here comes the response to this event. Initially there was a long pause from husband, the "person", then a look of illness, nausea perhaps, and finally an expression of "what should I do now, should I drink something or should I throw it up expression...." Unfortunately for me he opts for none of the above and makes his way over to the puppet stage, more specifically towards me. He peers over the side of the stage and glares down at me - may I add he also looks a little pale - much to my delight. I scream which makes the puppet look like she's having a delayed reaction to the oncoming of the "person". The dignity of the show was gone - if there even was any to begin with, but oh how I wish I could have been a "real person" that day because apparently the look on his face was "priceless". How we ever recovered from that scene, the Lord only knows. We've had many moments behind and in front of that stage but nothing will compare to that infamous day of fig eating, thanks to my well stocked and cared for pantry and my good humored husband.