Thinking outside of the box

One of the best parts of going to a different place has got to be finding different and funky foods. I remember as a kid, we went to Puyallup, Washington once, for a black powder rendezvous. Walking through the aisles of an American grocery store was quite exciting. So many different brands of candy ! We bought a huge variety of types and flavours to bring back to share with our friends at school. That was actually the first time I ever saw the 1/2 size cans of pop. Isn't it amazing what actually stands out in your memory? I have never forgotten that.

Every time I travel to any area that has 'different' types of food, I always choose as much as I can to bring home. It is kind of fun, especially if you are in an area like, oh let's say....Jakarta? and you have no clue what some of the 'fun food' might be.

That brings me to a recent event in which 2 current residents of the White House participated. ( for anyone who does not know, Kim and Tris's last name is White, it always brings a corny smirk to refer to their place as the White House) There is a grocery store in the local mall that has a lot of international foods , over here, Canadian is the International food ~ wink! They even have frosted flakes for a mere 118,400 Indonesian Rupiah. For fun why don't you google that amount into a currency converter....gasp! That is for a 430 gr box.

We decided this was the perfect shop to pick up a few of the unusual , fun and funky foods that would be well received back home on Vancouver Island. As we were browsing we came upon an Asian food section, there were lots of interesting little packages of things that resembled sweets but you can never be too sure. Amazingly, dried shrimp balls can look like an apricot roll, and if there is no English on the package....? Who's to know?

One of the packages had these crazy little dark brown discs about the size of 4 quarters stacked on top of each other. They were covered in a fine coating resembling straw dust. Is this sounding like anything you have ever seen in a barn? Two Canadian chics, each with a great sense of humour, examining a package of sweets that resemble something found in a barn in Merville ....one says to the other ," Why don't we get these and put a bunch in a little pile somewhere so when the rest of the family sees them, they wonder what it is?" The other one says," Oh my gosh, that is hilarious, I am SO buying these!"

Well, yesterday afternoon presented the perfect opportunity for such a prank. We were headed into to Jakarta at about 3:30 p.m. for church, not to return until 9 ish.... plenty of time for this little bit of fun to seem realistic.

What you may be unaware of is how many strange and crazy critters just show up indoors in this neck of the woods. One time Kim posted about the large snake that was enjoying a little vacation behind the toilet in their downstairs bathroom... yeah, the one they let me use! So for us to present this scenario was really not that much of a stretch.

Waiting until the last moment to set the scene, I scampered over to the little gap between the corner 0f the fridge and the wall that leads into the kitchen. Perfect! 7 perfectly shaped little drops of ???? By this stage of the game they no longer resemble a disc shape, I was quite creative in the restructuring and molding of these little gems. Quick, out to the car, give Kim the thumbs up, now, forget about it until later....

9:40 something p.m. we arrive back home. The way this played out you would have thought they were reading a script! oh my stomach still hurts from laughing so hard!

Tris walked past the fridge into the kitchen, did something then turned around to come back out, I noticed his eye flash down to the little mound of brown on the very white smooth tile. He looked.... he looked again...."What?!" he looks extremely puzzled, "What the heck is that!?" as he points to the pile. Kim by this time has busied herself setting her laptop up on the kitchen table, I have deeked around the corner by the piano, because I am already overcome with mirth. I was wondering how I was going to get through this without blowing it.

Tris called the kids to come and look, they were all aghast, what on earth could that be. The best part was that no one was getting too close, so it looked even more realistic. They were scratching their heads and looking at us and each other, what in the world? Kim decides to ramp it up a bit, I am trying not to pee on the floor, nor draw attention to the fact that I am dying laughing inside. She kneels down in front of the pile and says something like, " Ew, that's so gross!" then she picks a piece up! I am not going to survive, Abby is shrieking, "Ewww, Ewww, she picked it up!!! Mom, gross, oh my gosh, she picked it up!" Everyone is so fixed on Kim by this point , I just collapse into a chair and start to allow the muscle spasms in my stomach to take over. To really freak everyone out, Kim proceeds to poke her finger into the perfectly shaped little brown mass and then take a bite out of it!!! Oh please, stop, I am going to die from pain I am laughing so hard. Tris has clued in obviously but the kids have not. Oh it was just so funny.

This morning Kim came down and heard me typing, she said she is going to write on her blog and post the photos that were taken strategically throughout the entire Case of the Mystery Brown Pile. Then she said that Tris told her later that he really believed it at first. There has been a komodo dragon in the neighbourhood, mysteriously appearing inside peoples homes, and he knew that was the only critter big enough to leave droppings that size. The cincher for the reality check was when Kim picked it up, he knew then that there was something funny going on, she would never touch poop!

For photos please look on the right hand side at blogs that I follow, click onto Tris and Kim's Indonesian Adventure, it is worth it!