Can we talk? About aluminum foil?
I am not a frugal person. Wouldn't hurt if I had a little more conservatism in my soul when it comes to money but...I don't. It happens. I married someone to handle it, which is MY way of addressing the issue. That works. (Having said that, I thought he knew everything. He didn't. I hate it when that happens.)
My grandmother re-used aluminum foil. She literally rinsed it off and laid it across the drainboard to dry. When zip lock bags...wait, they weren't zip lock, I don't think. They were just plastic bags. But she re-used them, too.
Washed and rinsed them and put them over glasses to dry. My mom takes the linings out of cereal boxes, cuts it down the sides and uses it for waxed paper. My sister calls ahead to find out when happy hour is, and then shows up for the last ten minutes and orders two drinks.
That's just WRONG. I don't know how much my utility bill is, how we pay private school tuition, or how often The Big Boy gets paid. Not my job. BUT...
Having said this, in this time of the declining ice caps and plastic bottles in the landfill forever and all the other things that are going wrong at this point in history, I do what I can. We compost. We recycle beer cans, but that's because the class with the most cans gets a pizza party and honey...this house goes through beer cans like Carter went through oats. I mulch with newspaper. Grow what I can.
But there is no point in time I am going to recycle aluminum foil. AIN'T. GONNA. HAPPEN. There's something so...functional...about a new sheet of aluminum foil. All strong and shiny and just BURSTING with the potential to protect my food. And I get all pissy about people who just WRAP with foil, as opposed to those of us who have mastered the art of SEALING with foil. Puh-leeze. Get a talent.
Today was homecoming at the church I don't go to, so I started cooking yesterday. Chicken and dressing. Shepherd's Pie. Beans. Marinated vegetables. The chicken and dressing went into a dish with a snap-on lid. The beans in a pan with a lid. The vegetables in a zip lock bag, in a bowl, to be dumped out when we got there.
But the Shepherd's Pie was in a pottery casserole dish which had no lid, so I covered it with aluminum foil and off we went. Since I didn't attend the service (sue me) I unloaded the car and helped set out the food. The ladies were sorting the dishes, removing the lids and putting them under the dish they covered, under the table. You get ready to leave? There's your cover. No problem.
Y'all, when I got ready to leave and reached down for my sheet of aluminum foil...IT WAS GONE. And in it's place was this multi-tasked, seriously USED, really wrinkled...and torn...sheet of foil. It was pitiful looking...and obviously, this wasn't its first rodeo.
And I'm standing there thinking...SOMEONE AT THE CHURCH STOLE ALUMINUM FOIL. I mean, stealing church pencils might have a purpose if you're on your way to the golf course but...you're endangering your immortal soul over ALUMINUM FOIL? You are going to stand there and look St. Peter in the eye and admit...YOU LEFT YOUR OLD ALUMINUM FOIL FOR SOMEONE ELSE? And I know it wasn't an accident because the piece that was left? It hadn't been recycled just once. It had been rode hard and put up wet and it had more bends in it that Jacque Cousteau on his last dive. Stiff as a board. That piece of foil had been coddled.
So, being the non-frugal person that I am, I went into the church kitchen and got the aluminum foil out of the cabinet and got myself a new sheet. Covered my casserole, brought it home, and then freaked out again...ALUMINUM FOIL?
SOMEONE STOLE ALUMINUM FOIL? AT CHURCH?
Damn good thing we're Methodists and don't play bingo or I'd have to start bringing my own card.
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