Food Labels

My cheap mother dated this huge loser named Glenn for a while. Glenn delivered pizzas for a living. For about a year of my childhood, I think, we had some cold messed-up Pizza Hut order for dinner about 5 nights a week. Yum.

But that's not the point. Glenn was kind of stupid (that's how a man comes to deliver pizzas for a living well into his thirties). Glenn was convinced that Chiquita bananas were better than other brands of bananas. They might be; I haven't tested for myself. But, at the same time, I can see how my mother thought this was silly. In order to avoid buying more expensive bananas, she started buying Chiquitas once in a while, then saving the stickers, so that when the next few bunches she bought were generic, she could stick a Chiquita sticker or two on the generic bunch, and Glenn would be none the wiser.

It may not surprise you to hear that Glenn had preferences for other name brand items, such as Kellogg's Corn Flakes, or Jif Peanut Butter. Naturally, my cheap mother expanded her banana-label-replacing scheme to cover all kinds of foods. Pull the bag out of a generic box of cereal, drop it in a Kellogg's box, and voila! You've got yourself some name brand cereal.

Of course, you can tell the difference. These name brand Corn Flakes taste funny, you think. It never occurs to you, though, that someone could be so cheap, so obsessed with proving that her way is smarter and better, that she could have swapped Corn Flakes. If these came out of the name brand box, they must be name brand. Then, of course, my cheap mother reveals her scheme and offers as proof that generic cereal is the same as name brand cereal the fact that you didn't notice the difference. Even though you did.

Epilogue: I think Glenn came to our house a couple years later selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. It was awkward.