What the Splatters Tell

I’ve decided to do a few summer reruns. This anecdote was posted to my original blog back in March of 2013.

One day a young mother I’ll call Betty got sick and had to spend over a week in the hospital. Since her husband had a job away from home, the couple decided it would be best to hire a housekeeper who could look after the house and the children during the day.

As Betty was recovering from her illness she often questioned how things were going at home, how her husband and young family were getting along with someone new in the house. She asked how the housekeeper was managing in her kitchen. Her husband assured her that things were going just fine; the housekeeper was an older woman and quite capable.

Betty was so thankful when discharge day came; gladly she packed up her few things. Her husband and children all came to bring her home. On the way, she asked the children if they were having a good time with the housekeeper and they told her that she was neat. To top it off, she’d been cooking all the meals they liked.

Betty was surprised, then suspicious. “I suppose you told her what she should cook for you?”

“Oh, no. She just knows.”

After she got home and settled in, she visited with the housekeeper and asked how she’d guessed all their favorite foods. “Oh, that was easy,” the housekeeper replied. “I just went through your cookbooks and made the recipes on the pages that were smudged and splattered up.”