Once upon a time, a seed was planted.
This seed was planted in fertile soil in an open field in Illinois by a farmer. It was a happy seed – just chillin’ in it’s bed of dirt. It’s parents taught it all about growth and puberty, and they named him Jose’. Jose was exposed to sunlight, fertilizer, pesticides, rain, and fresh air. Between 45-60 days, Jose created a pod filled with 4-6 beans, and was ready to be picked by a machine. Suddenly, Jose was stolen from the field and taken to a plant where he was decontaminated, broken in half, it’s ends snipped off, placed in liquid, and then packaged into a can. Jose made friends with all the other prisoners in this can, and they prayed to the Lord that someday they would find their purpose.
A year later, this can was picked up in the store by me and purchased for $1.50. I needed to make something for Homecoming at church.
My husband and I are broke right now because we’ve had some unexpected expenses. In order to both save money and give the Baptist masses what they require as a food offering, I purchased green beans.
I got up this morning at 7 AM and opened the beans. As I opened the can, Jose breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he was about to die and fulfill his final destiny.
Yes – a married, childless couple actually brought food to the potluck? #Miracles
Little did we know that this pot of green beans would nearly cause a divorce this morning.
A few hours later, my husband and I were both up and getting ready to leave.
The aroma of these sweet beans filled our house with the essence of all the grandmas in the world… My ancestors whispered in my ear and told me exactly how much brown sugar to put in. I stopped only when they told me to. Everything had went according to plan.
Dressed to the 9’s, my shoes were kickin’, my hair was edgy and hated by all the elderly in the church, makeup normal and pale as usual, toenails on point, my husband – wearing the same shirt for the 3rd week in a row to church. We were ready. Lol (Guys have it so easy)
We loaded up in the car and I put the precious & holy crockpot of beans between my feet in the front floorboard, so I could keep it from turning over.
You need to know a major detail.
We live up a big hill.
It’s sorta steep.
What goes up, must come down.
As we started in the car down the hill, hell broke loose and Satan ran for his life.
“OMG THE GREEN BEANNSSS!!!!” I screamed.
Boiling bean juice sloshed out from under the lid and directly onto my foot.
Brian stopped mid-hill, leaving the liquid leaning dangerously close to one edge of the pot. I said OMG LET OFF THE BRAKES AND GO FORWARD! GO!!!! WHY ARE YOU STOPPED LIKE THIS?!
When we reached the bottom, I told him to stop the car.
He stopped alright.
Instead of coming to a slow and steady stop like I thought he would, he slammed on his brakes immediately, sending more scaulding bean juice onto the floor mat. What did I do? Naturally, I took this all out on my husband…
WHAT ARE YOU DOING????!!!!!
Brian ran into my in-laws home, who we share a driveway with. He came out running with a whole roll of paper towels. I lifted up the crockpot from the floorboard and he goes, “Good Lord there aint hardly nothin’ there.”
He tears off 2 paper towels.
I thought I would kill him right there.
I said, “Says the person whose feet are dry. Okay.”
He then laughed in my face, which infuriated me even further.
It wasn’t even his fault. I was just taking it out on him like an idiot. Lol
He went back into the house to return the roll. When he got back in the car, I knew this was going to be bad. Our pot didn’t seal. It was just a loose lid. It didn’t matter how hard the lid was held down, it was happening regardless. My grand idea was to put this crockpot in my lap and maneuver it from side to side against my husbands jerky steering motions that were to befall me.
Our road is an obstacle full of speed bumps, potholes, and washboards. For this pot of beans, its the equivalent of Frodo and Sam making it into Mordor undetected.
Nearly impossible.
Brian said to me, “That’s a bad idea. You’re going to spill that all over your Lularoe dress.”
Word to the wise: Never tell an angry woman that her idea is bad. Even if it is. Lol
At an insanely fast speed of 10 mph, we hurried through our treacherous road and miraculously made it out onto the main highway. However, it was not over. This road is filled with sharp turns.
In order to shift the crockpot enough to prevent spillage, I had to hover the pot a little above my lap. After a minute or so, my wrists felt like they were going to snap in half. Brian says to me, “Thats God preparing you to hold babies.”
“He better prepare you for me slappin your mouth” I replied sharply.
Brian sped up and snapped the car around a curve when it happened.
No im kidding. That didnt happen lol
What DID happen was that I lost my crap entirely and blew up.
SLOW DOWN!!!!!!
Brian is laughing at me the whole time this is going on. I was at the mercy of my husbands driving. That is a TERRIFYING position to be in. I started taking my irritation about our bean plight out on the local townspeople, although they were unaware of my thoughts. I even screamed out one time for Brian to purposely hit a pedestrian. MOVE!!!!!
We eventually make it to a 4 way intersection. We stop at the light. In the center of this intersection is a large dip in the road. I breathed to him that if he went through there too fast, that he would die later by my own hands. We were nearly there.
We were fast approaching some railroad tracks, and this was my first thought:
Railroad tracks suddenly looked like an insurmountable obstacle to our green bean quest.
I held my breath.
and we slowly but surely made it and managed to not get hit by a train.
WE’VE ALMOST MADE IT WITH THESE STUPID GREEN BEANS!
As we approached the dip in the middle of the intersection, I begged God for my life. I pictured images in my head of some fool running a red light and slamming into our car. Not only do we not survive, but forensics experts and medical examiners are perplexed as to why green bean residue is present on our bodies. I was picturing me dumping the entire pot in my lap, and all over the console area of our car. I was thinking how much it would cost to get the car detailed later. I was imagining the hospital bill later we’d receive for burning my genitals off when the green beans spilled on my lap, and having to have a c-section later due to my scar tissue. My mind was racing with horrifying thoughts. Lol
BUT…
We MADE IT!
-and the green beans were nearly all eaten by the herd of Baptists.
Our marriage is saved now.
But it was a close one.
campbellrewritten.com 