Canned Eat

My mom (83) and Dad (86) decided to eat lunch at the local Seniors community center yesterday. Last night at dinner they were discussing their afternoon with me. 

After the meal at the Senior Center the director offers up Bingo to anyone who wants to play. My parents do not participate because they would rather chat, but my father asked my mother if he saw anyone with any prizes.

 Mom said, "Yes, I saw Irene had a can of fruit cocktail and Mrs. Schneider had a can of peas."

 "A can of peas?  Blah." I thought to myself. 

I suggested, "Maybe could we donate a few items from around the house for prizes." (Like a Yankee Candle or 5 that we always seem to accumulate at Christmas.) 

Mom said, "No, most of the bingo players are widows and have enough trinkets and like getting something they can use."

 Dad said every once and a while someone makes a trip to the Aldi store and buys a stock pile of canned items for Bingo. Oh my, the image of winning at Bingo was getting more pathetic. Do they have to go to that store? I have never set foot in one but I have heard stories about the scratch and dent quality of the products, that have to be paid for in cash. I had the image of love starved desperate widows scraping for a can of dented peas. It made me sad.

Then Mom relates this horror story from just the night before. She had been on the phone with her friend Iris who Mom has known since Jr. High. Iris lives alone in the country and is very arthritic. Iris was going to prepare some pumpkin bars for a funeral. She had bought the canned pumpkin, which she needed for the recipe, at Aldi!  She went to open the can and it was made differently and did not have the typical ridge that most canned items have so the can opener somehow became lodged on the can and she could not get it off and did not get the can opened until her granddaughter came over later that evening after work and tried and she could not open it either. She ended up throwing the can out and didn't get the bars made. That made me sadder. Iris had lost her faith in canned goods.

I quietly got up from the supper table, placed my dishes in the dishwasher and retreated to the basement. Easily removing the twist off plastic cap from a bottle of Old Crow, I enjoyed a Bergman film.