A few nights ago I cooked some rice to go with dinner. One of my absolute favorite small appliances is the rice cooker my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas years ago. It has literally saved my life. I used to be a horrible rice cooker, now I look like a genius. It makes me look good, plain and simple. I use it multiple times a week. That's how much we love rice. The two types of rice I generally cook are Basmati and Jasmine. Now that you are intimately familiar with our rice habits, let me tell you a little story.
Like I said, I was making rice the other night. I may or may not have been a tad bit scatter-brained. That time of the day is the craziest around our household. Everyone has places to be, all normally at the same time, and I am trying to cook dinner at warp speed so we can all sit down and eat together before we all disperse. I refuse to sacrifice sitting down at the table together each night. This is the core of our family time. This is where we have our best conversations, share our hearts and enjoy a few minutes together each day. It would be much easier to let everyone help themselves to whatever they find and we all eat on the go. But I don't always like the easy path....even if it sometimes costs me my sanity.
So....back to the rice. As I was adding the rice into the rice cooker I was admiring the container I keep my rice in. Odd, I know. I never said I was normal. I remember thinking to myself, I really like this kind of rice. I think we should only by this kind from now on. Why do I even bother buying two different types. Yes, I think this will be the only one from hence forth. Or something to that effect. I was consciously making an executive decision about the type of rice I would be buying the next time I went to the grocery store. A mental list if you will.
And because my brain was so busy processing everything I was doing and thinking, it somehow forgot to tell me what to do with the rice container. Apparently I did something with it, but I have zero recollection. It escaped into a black hole that I only thought happened to lost emails. Oh well...dinner must go on.
The night progressed as normally as possible for us. The next day came and went. Finally, yesterday morning, at the crack of dawn, when I was making the kids' school lunches I noticed I was missing my now favorite, cherished brand of rice. I only noticed because the peanut butter container was sitting right next to the spot I keep the rice containers. However, there was only one rice container there, not two. I do not have the mental capacity to deal with such mysteries at 6am. I was baffled by it. I asked around, "Hey, has anyone seen my rice container?" No one responded. No one cared.
But I refused to let the issue drop. Nobody just looses rice. It has to be here somewhere! Then I remembered my propensity to throw things away without thinking about it. Yes, I've even thrown away a $50 bill before. Not one of my better moments. So Chuck concluded that I probably threw my beloved rice container away. But I just couldn't buy his hypothesis. I wouldn't do that...would I? I like this rice. I'm sure I just lost the rice.
I shall keep you in suspense no longer. Everyone can take a collective deep breath (because I know you've been holding your breath during this whole Sherlock Holmes adventure). I found my rice this morning. And it wasn't in the trash. Apparently, my brain thought that putting it in the farthest reaches of the bottom, back shelf behind all my other small appliances was in some fashion helpful. This is apparently where you put treasured items to save them.
I skipped joyfully up to our bedroom to tell my barely awake husband in a not at all irritatingly sing-songy voice, "I found the rice, I found the rice!" We are all happy now. It is proof I am not crazy....only during the dinner making process (maybe), but not completely crazy. Nobody looses rice - not even me.
