Boy Barometer

My younger sister was rummaging around in the baking cupboard at The Farm looking for ingredients for her swoon-worthy cinnamon rolls when she uncovered a bag of chocolate chips. Mom probably bought them for a baking project which means they are, at a minimum, two years old.

"You can tell these aren't in my house," R. commented. "They wouldn't have lasted a week."

Ah, memories.

Before the exodus of Boys from the House on the Corner, baking chips were on every week's shopping list. The Boys were bakers extraordinaire, although at that time this pretty much was the beginning and ending of their cooking prowess. So chocolate chips for cookies, butterscotch chips for Rice Krispie bars, peppermint chips because they were on sale, mini-chips for muffins--I bought them all. If the Boys weren't baking, they were snacking, and the opened half bag of left-over chocolate chips soon was a quarter bag, then just eight or nine chips rattling around in the bag. No one ever finished off the bag and threw it away, though.

After I got home from The Farm I checked the chips supply in my own baking cupboard. Nine bags. Nine bags of chips that have been untouched since the house quieted down in mid-August. We have enough chips to last most families for a good year or two.

But for us? That supply will last until Tuesday. The Boys are coming home Monday--I'd better stock up.