Elastic Grandma

My grandmother had an obsession with elastic bands. She had every size and color under the sun. She had her whole collection dangling from her wrist like a big rubber bangle. She must have thought that if someone needed one she'd be ready.  Is there a better conversation starter? Coming to the rescue of someone's untidy emergency. You know what you need? Here's an elastic.

Every morning she would wake up ready to collect her rubber treasures. She read the morning news not just for the obits but because it came with a free elastic band. Wow! Sometimes, she prayed for rain just so she could get a bonus plastic bag. Plastics and elastics. Well, good morning to me. Her quest continued.

She must have thought, where else can I find elastic bands? The grocery store was now an adventure.  I don't remember her being a fan of  broccoli, I think she bought it because it came with a hard to find small fat elastic band. A collectors item. She wasn't a fan of the flimsy elastic around lettuce but she bought it anyway. She had so many bands around her wrist, I don't think she could feel her fingers. The price you pay to be of service.  Soon, everything she bought had to come with a bonus. Kid's cereal came with hockey stuff. She treated us and it was cool. I couldn't wait to tare open the box, rip the bag open, stick my hand threw to the bottom and dig out the surprise. There is only one thing better. Eating all the raisins out of the cereal and pissing my brothers off because all they have left is bran flakes. He, he. Even tea had to have something. They did have something. A lot of somethings. Little ceramic figurines. There wasn't a bare shelf in her house. Even peanut butter had to have a bonus jam swirl in the jar. Another bonus, the jar turned into a drinking glass. Clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades oh my. How cool is that.

From elastic to plastic

My grandmother had a little door next to her big side entry door, in case the Keebler elves wanted to stop by in the middle of the night to make cookies. It was the milk door. How special is milk to have his own door. It was like a green room. Mr. Milk is a comedian and he just can't wait to hit the stage and pour himself out in a comedy of errors. His trusty sidekick (my sister) would help him spill the laughs everywhere. On the table. On my lap, on the pet dog and eventually on the floor. Later, when milk came in bags the door was shut for good but luckily, the comedy continued. The bag had to to be smashed down into a  bag holder pitcher thing. Whatever it's called. If you didn't get it far enough down, that's when the fun began. Enter my sister. If the bag was not smashed down a little bit of the bag would lean over. A little tip:  the bigger the hole, the bigger the mess. The first glass disaster is brought to you by you know who, my sister. On the table. On my lap and on the floor. By now the pet dog, wise to seating arrangements, was eating out of my brothers hand on the other side of the table. 

My grandma was thrifty. A three pack of milk came with a bonus bag around them. Yippy! She wouldn't throw them away. No. She wouldn't recycle. Didn't need to. She would cut open the top and wash them out. It was the best of both worlds. Left overs in a plastic milk bag wrapped with and elastic band. Life was good.  Now a word about wonder. I mean bread. 

My dad use to say. Okay. Every dad use to say, When I went to school. I had to walk to school. Five miles, both ways. Up hill. We didn't have fancy boots. Bare feet.  Luckily, us kids had boots. When our boots or our socks had holes in them we didn't throw them away. Why? We had perfectly good bread bags. They even worked in our skates. What a great deal. Come to think of it, if it wasn't for grandmas bread bags, I would have lost my toes years ago.

I remember getting ready for school. My mother had a collection of bread bags thrown up on the shelf above our coats. Our boots and shoes were in a pile on the bottom. Everything was at arms length. We all had toques. After all, we were Canadians kids. For an added bonus we could choose a scarf or a turtle neck dicky. I didn't call dibs on not wearing the dicky, so I had to wear it. Before putting our boots on we'd pull our socks out enough to fold over the holes and ever so gently  slip a bread bag on, then ever so gently slip our bread bagged feet into our boots and pray that everything stayed in place. The rest of the exposed bread bags got tucked into our pants and were kept in place with you guessed it, Grandmas elastic bands. It wasn't about style is was about not freezing our toes off. Snug as bug in a rug. Off we went, three kids running through St. Jules field, bread bags on our feet and lunch pails in hand. Speaking about lunch pails. Our lunch pails were filled with love. Neatly packed inside, our PB and J sandwiches were in a elastic band secured repurposed milk bag.  

Life was simple then. I owe a lot to elastics, plastics and a woman with a weird obsession. 

Thanks grandma. Meme'