Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder Column #4
Mysterious White Powder
When I put five blue placemats on the table for dinner tonight, they are immaculate. Dinner is just for Marlo and me, but I also put three on the center of the table to protect the varnished surface. Dinner is simple — microwaved pork roast leftovers, mixed vegetables, strawberries, and apple crisp.
Clearing the table afterwards, I discover a mysterious white powder atop one of the center placemats.
What could that be? I wonder. Salt? Sugar? But I didn’t set either of those on the table for our simple supper.
I taste it. It is flavorless. Not salt. Not sugar. What can it be? I rub a bit of it between my fingers and check more carefully. It is not pure white, and tiny flecks of tan mingle with the white.
Did I overlook the granules when setting the table? Impossible. I open cupboard doors and look around. Everything white and granular—tapioca, gelatin, breadcrumbs, baking powder, baking soda, and even Miralax—is safely sealed in its designated container. The same is true for the quinoa, quick oats, and flours in their orange Tupperware in the pantry.
Hands on my hips, I stare around my kitchen befuddled. Are there elves? Poltergeists? How about one of those dangerous powders that came in envelopes a few years ago? Panic rises. OH, NO — MAYBE I INGESTED A DEADLY POISON.
Mr. Reasonable butts his level head into my interior conversation.
Carol, use your brain. How would poison get from an envelope in the mail to your table?
I don’t know. Maybe Marlo, maybe —
Really, Carol, do you think your careful, engineer husband would open an envelope with powder and not mention it, and then spill some on the table?
Well, no but…
What you imagine is impossible. If you slow down and think rationally, you will see that.
I hear you, but…
Listen to yourself. Your brain is spinning in place. Stop listening to your worrywart imagination.
OK, I’ll try.
I take long, deep breaths. I push the brakes of the worry train. It slows to a stop. I quit worrying. Mr. Reasonable is right. That powder could not have traveled from an envelope in the mail to our table. But I still muse about the mystery. I hate not knowing. Anytime. Anywhere.
Five days later, I open the freezer side of my side-by-side refrigerator and take out a package of bacon from a middle shelf.
It has a strange whitish powder atop it, with tan specks. I look toward the shelf above, where the twisty tie for a plastic bag of rye flour has fallen off. That shelf too, has the white powder. I lick my finger, rub the powder atop the bacon, and taste.
Yup. Gritty and tasteless. Mystery solved.
No, wait! I didn’t take anything from the freezer for that meal.
Out of the misty past, a mental movie plays. I see Marlo leaving the dinner table to get ice cream for his apple crisp. Ice cream that also sits on that middle shelf.
Mystery truly solved. I retie the rye flour’s plastic bag.
My mind no longer wanders clueless to this mystery wilderness.
Of course there are plenty of other conundrums, still unsolved. How can my washer make single socks disappear? Was my coughing a minute ago an early warning sign for lung cancer? And how is my Facebook advertising feed able to read my mind?
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Question for the week: Do you sometimes imagine the worst about an unsolved mystery? I’d like to learn your story in comments, chat, or by email.
Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts — and entertains audiences with reading performances of her work. Her most recent book is A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff. Her email address is carolvk13@gmail.com. Readers can email her to receive a free PDF of the opening chapters of her new book. Just ask!