Grandma Red has 4-tipout window-view bins on the end of her kitchen island.  It’s a kid-magnet. There is one bin filled with peanut M&Ms, one for Swedish Fish, one for suckers and one loaded with bubble gum.  The kids love Grandma Red, but it’s the bins that keep them coming back.  

We’d been on vacation for a week, and I was plowing through the laundry.  I never check pockets.  The unexpressed rule at our house is, “If you value your pocket contents, that’s your responsibility.  Gramma doesn’t have time, nor the inclination to go through everyone’s pockets.”  Plus, I usually collect a few bucks at the end of each laundry day, and that’s a bonus for not checking pockets.  Well, I was moving clean clothes to the drier and found five pieces of pink, double bubble in the bottom of the washer.  Red flag!  Don’t start that drier without checking for more.  So, I checked and came up with three more pink chunks among the wet wash I’d loaded in the drier. After removing all I could find, I started the drier with a prayer in my heart.

Thirty minutes later, I opened the drier and started picking through the contents.  Now, just to add a little drama the girls had been school shopping with the Aunties and despite the warnings to save those new clothes for school, Hadley had worn a pair of her new socks. 

One of those new socks attracted the double trouble bubble.  Good news first.  That piece of gum attached itself to the sock and nothing else. I was thinking, “This is a bit of a miracle. Just one sock.  I’ll lose the sock and blame it on the washing machine sock-swallowing monster.”  However, Hadley is everywhere and knows everything.  She walked in just as I was in “lose the sock mode.”

“That is my sock. I told Elle not to put so many pieces of gum in her pocket.  She ruins everything I have.  Elle…”.  And so it began.  Elle reminded Hadley she had lots of socks.  “It’s just a sock.”  The banter continued.  You get the picture.  

Later in the day, after things had settled down, I asked Elle, “Why so many pieces of gum?”  

“So, there would be one for everyone on the boat.”

“Oh, they weren’t all for you?”

Suddenly, I was proud of her.  It’s a Good Life when you think of others. It’s a Great Life when you can deliver that bubble gum and it doesn’t end up on Hadley’s sock!