No, I did not know.
Instead of knee-deep into the refrigerator, Allison is head-deep. I am behind her, sitting at the kitchen counter and checking the weather on my phone. It’s supposed to be 73 today and sunny. Just right!
“This strawberry jam is one-third full,” she reports from somewhere inside the refrigerator, “and the other strawberry jam is half full, and the raspberry jam is a quarter full.”
“You know, instead of teaching fractions with pizza slices, maybe textbooks should give jam jars a try.”
“I’ll place your three jams on the side rail so you’ll remember you have them,” she says, ignoring my point about math pedagogy.
A moment passes and then the intrepid reporter, now reporting from the crisper drawer, wonders aloud if I know we have four blocks of cheese.
And later, two bottles of rice vinegar.
And later, when she has moved to renovating the freezer, six open bags of frozen corn in various fractional amounts.
No, I did not know. But I do know that I am often mistaken.
When I think I don’t have enough, I actually do.
I admit, when I pick up a block of cheese at the grocery store, I do not stop to ask myself, “Self, do you think you are out of cheese, or do you really know you are out of cheese?”
Instead of that conversation, a feeling of cheese deprivation washes over me, and in my mind’s eye, I see a refrigerator drawer with no cheese inside it. The same experience happens in the fruit preserve aisle, and I end up buying another jar of jam.
When I was growing up, I used to watch the family melodrama “Eight Is Enough.” I wonder how the parents knew that eight was the magic number of children. Did something just feel not right when baby number five came along? I suppose if family planning went awry and there was a ninth baby, the show would have been called “Nine Is Excessive.”
Yes, sometimes by adding more, things become too much! If only Goldilocks were real. Then I could ask her to tell me when I’ve found the sweet spot of “just right.” Her advice would certainly come in handy when I’m scooping out ice cream.
“I see you are about to add a fourth scoop of ice cream to your bowl,” she would say, “but I think what you have in there is just right.”
“Gee, thanks, Goldilocks! Yes, I now see I have more than enough. OK, now tell me when I have piled on enough whipped cream. I tend to go overboard. And then we’ll move onto the chocolate sprinkles. Do you like to deluge them on top of ice cream, like me? Why the frowny face, Goldilocks?”
But I don’t have Goldilocks helping me. I have to rely on myself to figure out when less is more, when there is not enough, when there is more than enough, and when there is too much.
But are these objective decisions or subjective decisions? Would Goldilocks say three scoops is just right not only for me but also for you? Or would she size you up and say, go right ahead and add five scoops to your bowl and pile whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles with abandon?
Beyond ice cream in a bowl, I wonder how much money in a bank account is enough. Surely at some point there must be more than enough. And how much should be given to charity? I’m thinking there is never enough. And what about all that I have written about having enough?
I hope you will find I have written not too little and not too much, but just the right amount.
If I have, Goldilocks will be pleased.
