The Lighthouse

the lighthouse

19 January 2011

We buy our pasta in bulk

Well, you can imagine how much pasta - how much anything - a family of 8 (6 boys, 2 girls) goes through.  The girls go through lotions and potions, but the boys go through pasta (and heating vent covers... but that's a topic for another day) like there's no tomorrow. It only makes sense to buy things like pasta and cereal in bulk amounts, which means we know the staff at Schmcostco by name because even the forklift-required-sized box of spaghetti does run out eventually and we find ourselves back at the store, stocking up once more... rather frequently.

While the size is convenient for our circumstances, the sheer volume of product can be disastrous if butter fingers manage to spill, drop, or knock it over. You'd think that would be instigated by Peanuts One through Five, but I must tell you, dear Reader, that most of the time it happens because of Yours Truly. More than once I have let the giant tub of margarine slip through my fingers to shatter on the floor (yes, tubs of margarine do shatter) causing margarine to spray on the lower third of the kitchen surfaces. Nice.

You'd think that a box of pasta would be so much easier, so much less apocalyptic, than greasy, shiny margarine... but you'd be wrong.  I had two pots bubbling and steaming on the stove tonight, poised right on the cusp of 'attend to me NOW or supper will be ruined forever' when I reached up into the pantry cupboard to take down the box of pasta.  Remember I told you we buy the forklift-required-sized boxes?  I reached for my target box with one hand, while the other was engaged in holding up the other two boxes of little fancy pastas that were piled on top of the spaghetti noodles.  I could feel steam from the stove dampening my back, so I moved perhaps a little more quickly than I should have, and the spaghetti box was precariously balanced in my grip. It tipped down at the back... which to my surprise was open.

That is how I learned that 27 pounds of dry spaghetti sounds like a rain storm when it hits the kitchen floor.

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