Most All Nuts Except Me

“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.” 
― Muhammad Ali

Orange juice. I will have a little bottle of orange juice. Sounds simple enough. But I couldn't twist the lid off no matter how hard I tried and in-spite of groaning, moaning and threatening to curse it mightily.

My scissors came with little teeth in a circular shape just above the handles. This is for opening cantankerous lids like the one on my orange juice.  But instead of opening the juice, the scissors just came apart and broke. My gosh, I thought I had done this before without breaking the scissors. Those little teeth are made for opening twist-off  bottle caps or cracking nuts.

I wasted a good 10 minutes trying to find the nut and bolt to put my scissors back together. I crawled all over my floor. My gosh they need a good sweep and a serious mopping with vinegar. But that will have to wait.

I am thirsty and I want to repair my scissors.

What I finally found was a broken brad type thing. No way to put my scissors back together. I guess I ruined them. Good grief.

I hate breaking things.

How can I be strong enough to break my scissors yet too weak to open the orange juice bottle?

Back in the fridge went the unopened orange juice.

Sometimes food is packaged so securely even I can't break into it. Recently I bought a southern favorite; pimento cheese spread. I should have made my own.

If I had made my own, which takes about 20-30 minutes, it would have been faster than trying to crack the code for opening the little container of spread and subsequently  the package of saltine crackers.

Live and learn. Sadly I was lacking some of the ingredients to make homemade pimento spread.

For some fool reason I had also bought some kalamata olives. I thought in my foggy brain that pimento cheese spread on a cracker with kalamata olives would be a tasty treat with orange juice. Oh right. Forget the orange juice.

Kalamata olives are tasty and healthy.

They keep a long time in the fridge.

Especially when you can't open them. 

The jar  of olives wouldn't yield to my ministrations either. I tapped it gently on the counter to try to break the seal on the lid.  I tried a rubber grip to open the lid. It would not budge.  I placed another rubber grip on the bottom and then twisted with all my might to try to open the olives.

Nothing.

I tried tapping it again on the counter top. I tapped this way and that way then tried to twist the lid off. It was firmly in place. Worrying I might mar the ancient counter top, I  got out the wooden chopping board. I banged my lid on that. Wood gives. A chopping board is made to look kind of beat up anyhow though mine is fairly good looking since I used to obsess about keeping it oiled up from time to time. Whoopie doodle doo.

Out of frustration I banged the lid harder and harder waiting to hear that little poof of air that signals the lid had broken it's magical seal. I banged that lid so hard it dented! And the dadgum olives still would not open.

Why is our food on lock down? Is it dangerous? Not only is it child-proof, it's adult proof!

I shoved the olives inside the fridge.

I turned my attention to an innocent box of saltine crackers.

What are they packaging crackers in these days? Can't rip them open, can't peel the glue apart at the top seal. Then once the sleeve is half empty, can't split the sleeve to get to the other half of the crackers. But I couldn't even get the crackers to open.

Scissors would have come to the rescue but I broke the scissors on the orange juice.

Meanwhile I returned to fight with the bowl of pimento cheese. I had pried off a bit of plastic, but the lid just wouldn't pop open. I went all around it with a magnifying glass looking for instructions or a secret lock or a special code or a hidden message.

In my frustration I settled on a banana. A banana is so easy to open even a monkey can do it. Right?

I must not be a monkey.

This banana peel was so tough it didn't want to snap open either. After five minutes of feeling ridiculously stupid because I couldn't get my banana open,  I had to finally cut the top off with a knife. What do they do to bananas to make them so rubbery on the outside?

Now that my banana was finally peeled and fully exposed, I noticed it was heavily bruised all over like it had lost in the wresting ring against Muhammad Ali.

 “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” 
Muhammad Ali

The Greatest: My Own Story

Muhammad Ali

Feeling triumphant, I carved off the bruises then ate the remainder, about a third of unblemished banana.

Muhammad was right, some things are not impossible...

Back to the pimento cheese. I was trying to leverage it open with a knife, to no avail. I trotted outside, found my tool box in the basement of my wheel estate then came back and tried a hammer. I was going to use the claw end to pry the lid off. I lost my grip. The container flew across the motorhome, bouncing across the floor several times scaring the dog who scampered off.

He had been sitting on the settee watching me curiously mess about with the food for the past hour.

On the four or fifth bounce the  lid popped off and the container magically flipped upside down with the contents sticking to the floor. Carefully I lifted the bowl. Now I am staring at an empty container in my hand and a blob of pimento cheese stuck to my floor.

This might be the point when that loud frustrating scream was heard around the RV park yesterday. Yep. That was me.

I so wish I had not become behind in my housekeeping. My floor was not clean. But that didn't stop the dog who came out of hiding, dashing over to see if he could be of help cleaning up the cheesy mess.

He apparently loves pimento cheese spread. But so much cheese and such a small dog do not mix well. I had to hastily scoop up the mess by hand and stuff it back in the container. I tried to scoop out the dirt and toss it away but I had cheese all over my hands. I couldn't open the cabinet to the little garbage can without making an even bigger mess.

Poor doggy looked bewildered that I wasn't going to let him eat his fill of cheese. The rest of the pimento cheese seemed more or less OK, but by now I had seriously lost complete  interest in it. I will label it  "dog snack" and stick it back in the fridge. I guess he can have a little spoonful now and then to satisfy his cheese craving. He doesn't seem to care that it landed on the not so clean floor.

Now he is excitedly following me around to see what else I might fling in the floor for him to dine on.

But I am trying to turn on the sink water without touching the handle because both my hands have sticky pimento cheese on them.

How does this happen?

An hour ago I was just going to make myself a little snack and so far I have had a third of a banana. Finally I just pushed the faucet on, let the pimiento cheese stick to the handle. I washed my hands, washed the faucet.

By now I felt a little faint.

Grapes. I will eat the grapes. Seems easy enough. I grabbed the new bag out of the fridge. They were sealed up with a zip lock slider. I unzipped it. Nothing opened. I re-zipped it, still they didn't open. Oh it reads "tear here". I tried tearing. It didn't tear. I tried ripping. It didn't rip. I tried a knife and it cut  a sliver off the baggy crooked, but not through the rest of the steel type plastic. Ziplock is the correct word with the emphasis on lock.

I stuffed the grapes back in the refrigerator.

I am going back to bed. I am too weak to be of any use now.

At this rate I will be skin and bones by Christmas. I can't open my food.

I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
Just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
~~~Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

Rest in peace Muhammad Ali, you wrote a great book too but I noticed you didn't say a thing about opening food!

My cheap broken scissors came with a Laugh-Time guarantee but these scissors by Chef Remi sold at  Amazon come with a LIFETIME GUARANTEE.

Award Winning Best Multi-Purpose Utility Scissors

So tough they even crack nuts (most all nuts... except me!)