PB Gourmet

    I am too old to eat peanut butter, she thought as she stabbed her knife in the Skippy's crunchy. She'd never seen a recipe for peanut butter anything in Cuisine or the one copy of Gastronomica that she'd paged so long in the check-out lane that the cashier had rung it up before she could slip it back on the rack. Fine. It looked good on her coffee table, and owning it didn't mean she had to actually read it, especially since peanut butter wasn't even listed in the index where it would have fit nicely between Peach, Poached in Spiced Red Wine and Pecorino Romano.

    She preferred it on toast, the peanut butter amply spread the second the toast popped up, so it melted into the toast, a perfect pairing. She could eat it plain, perfect and plain, but she seldom did, even though she had often noted that peanut butter plus whole wheat toast was a complete protein, improved, nay, amplified and perfectly partnered with a properly ripe banana, a perfect combination until....

    Well, she didn't even like to think about it, the day the new neighbor, the overly intrusive, over-dressed (in stockings and high heels!!) new neighbor rang the door bell, stepped in as soon as Mildred got the door open, and gushed, "Hello, we met at the neighborhood gathering, and I've been dying to get to know everybody better so I'm stopping at every house, ringing the tiny little doorbells and...Oh, my god, what am I smelling?"

    It was the melted p.b. on the still warm toast, getting colder by the minute. Mildred's first instinct was to say, calmly, "That's my lunch, my favorite sandwich from my childhood that my grandmother...." but the intruder not only teetered in high heel shoes, she spoke with a fake British--or was it French?--accent, and wore an emerald pendant that swayed seductively with every word. She was obviously waiting for Mildred to speak, to admit that she was eating an unsophisticated, mildly embarrassing, p.b. and banana sandwich.

    What to say?

    The woman was tall, too tall, and now actively peering over Mildred to spy on the plebeian and too obviously aromatic sandwich she'd been enjoying.

    There was nothing to say, no way to account for her lack of sophistication, her inclination to stutter, no way to hide the blush rising in her body, but to smile ruefully, shake her head, murmur, "I'm sorry, but we don't want any," and gently (yes! gently was possible) close the door.

    Which she did, and made it back to her lunch before the toast was stone cold.