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Last night was gorgeous out. Yes, you heard me right. I absolutely hate winter, but it really was beautiful. I was cooped up all day inside and started getting cloudy-headed. The snow stopped and it was warm out. Warm is a relative term, but it was warm enough that I didn’t need a hat or gloves and my face didn’t feel like it was going to fall off.

We got another 4-5 inches of snow yesterday, it was perfect snowman or snowball snow. I played with Otto & Klausie-boy our dogs for a long time making snowballs and watching them having fun catching them in their mouths. After I brought them inside I stayed outside and just enjoyed how quiet and calm everything was. I felt so much better when I came back inside.

I am not the outdoorsy type. Are you shocked? My son Sam jokes and says, “Oh you like the outdoors Julz, as long as it includes drinking cocktails, eating, cooking, grilling, sunbathing, swimming in a pool, and reading.” He is 100% right. It took me until last summer for me to finally admit that and how much I hated to garden.

When the kids were small we had vegetable gardens. We planted all sorts of vegetable plants and it was fun. The we turned into a me when it came to weeding, harvesting, putting the gardens to bed in the fall, and trying to force them to eat the vegetables we friggin grew. When we bought our house a garden club member was the former owner and put in gorgeous perennial gardens. I have always had flower pots of all kinds of flowers on our front porch and petunias hanging.

Last summer I was working in our front yard transplanting perennials, laying down mulch, weeding, all the stuff I hate to do. It was hotter than hell and buggy AF. Marty came to check on me to see how I was doing. When I said, “fine,” he said, “Oh my God just admit it already! You hate to garden! You always have!” I started cracking up and agreed with him, I do hate to garden…big time.

I like the idea of doing outdoorsy things like hiking, tubing down the Battenkill River, and all the other things Vermont has to offer. I like the idea of doing them but without bugs or creepy-crawly things. I may act like a tough guy, but I just don’t like things flying around my head and my ears. I am that one person out of a group of people who will get bit by every mosquito.

I am counting the days until Spring like everyone else. I look forward to when the daffodils and the violas will start to pop up. I am excited to see all the things that I transplanted and if they survived. I know that I will have to weed, lay down more mulch, prune things, plant my herbs and flowers in my flower pots because that all comes with the upkeep of a home. I hate scrubbing toilets and bathtubs, but I have to do those things too, but at least I don’t have to shoo things away from my ears while I’m doing them.

This blog and the journey that I am on are taking me to places I never thought I’d be. Learning to be true, honest and authentic is harder than it sounds. Much harder. 

I have so much that I need to share and talk about….good and super fun things. Foodie things and recipes. Interesting things, but also things that I feel bad and insecure about. Talking about being tortured emotionally, manipulated, and disappointed over and over again by people who you love isn’t an easy thing to do.

Not sharing who I am now, and why I am the way I am would be a lie; a lie I’ve been telling my whole life to protect the feelings of others. I’ve been terrified that if I talk about my true self, I will make people upset and mad. What if they never talk to me again or not have anything to do with me? I have tried to be my true self and it came back at me with a backlash that would make your head spin. One of those “people” I am talking about is my adopted mother, but there are others that I still have to dance around as well. 

Over time I know that I am going to write about things I am not comfortable with and it will be very hard for me. I’ve chosen to share my life with all of you instead of only having a cooking blog. If I was just writing a cooking blog I would be burned out in 6 months and would be done.

The one person on my journey who stands by my side, helps to push me along and often times lifts me is Marty. I’m so lucky to have someone like him in my corner, he loves me unconditionally and is very supportive, plus he accepts me for who I am. 

I hate pampering. There I said it for the world to hear. Since this is a blog about my living as well as cooking I decided to come clean with my opening statement. 

I know that millions of people love to be pampered. Most of my friends like pampering in one way or another. Please know I don’t mean to discredit, discount, or talk bad about spas and salons or the folks that love them. It’s just not for me.

I’ve had my hair cut, colored, highlighted, and permed. I’ve had my nails done. I had one pedicure, massage, and facial. I used to get my eyebrows and bikini line waxed, I even got a Brazilian wax done twice. All leaving me with a meh feeling. I do have to say the Brazilian wax left me with a, “Wow that hurt like hell!” feeling. Please don’t take it personally how I feel about pampering, you can just say, “Fuck you Julz, I like pampering and you are from a different planet.” Fair enough I am good with it.

On social media, I see how excited people are to have a mani-pedi day. A few years ago I actually scheduled one for myself. All I could think of was, “Get me the hell out of here!” I sat there thinking how much time I was wasting and that I was going to spend a bunch of dough being miserable. I hated the pedicure. I hated having my feet touched. I felt the same way about all the other pampering treatments I have had. 

I can actually cut hair pretty well, I understand the basics of it. I’ve cut other people’s hair along with my family’s and did a few friend’s hair and make-up for their proms back in high school. I can’t do complicated cuts like my boys have now, but I can do basic stuff. I’ve been cutting and coloring my own hair for years. I tried almost every color blonde, red, burgundy, black and red, highlights, and an unsuccessful purple but didn’t like any of them. I especially didn’t like my mousey medium brown that has a lot of natural red in it. My natural hair color gets so brassy I hate it. It turns orange in the summertime. My father once told me my hair looked like a doorknob. Thanks, dad!

I started coloring my hair darkest brown, not black when we started the business almost 4 years ago. We were taking some Vermont Spätzle photos for social media and I looked at myself. It was summer and my hair and tan skin were the same color. I had a one-dimensional look. I figured I had the chance to have a new look at our new business. We were literally meeting hundreds of people every week, this was my chance to shake it up. I really liked the way the darker hair made my face and features pop. For the first time when I looked in the mirror, I thought it looked like me. My son Noah and my siblings all have dark hair I have recently found out, maybe that’s why. 

I have to “refresh” my color every 4 weeks. I use professional hair color and not drug store products anymore. There is a huge difference! I hate touching up or coloring my hair. I absolutely dread it and make up excuses, wear a hat, or use a product called Style Edit which blends the grown-out areas beautifully. That is until I suck it up and color it. 

A hairdresser once told me, if you don’t keep up with your hair color you will look like a whore! WTF? It was a high-end salon and he was highlighting my hair. If you don’t keep up with it, don’t tell anyone I am your stylist. Screw you pal, that was my one and only time going to him. Another one left the highlighting color on too long and my hair broke off at the roots. See why I don’t like going? Every single stylist tries to talk me into cutting my hair short. I listened to them a couple of times and regretted it. Worse was when they did what they wanted and cut more off than I wanted. If I wanted to cut my hair shorter I would have asked for it. Capeesh?

Yesterday, I decided it was hair coloring and pedicure day. I had to psych myself up all week to do it. I had my hair done by 8:30 am and my toes finished before noon. Was it a waste of time? No. While my hair color is processing I run around like a damn idiot getting projects or cleaning done. You can get a lot done in 35 minutes! The thought of being stuck in a chair for that long at a salon gives me the screaming meemies. 

For someone who thinks it’s a chore when it comes to self-maintenance, I never minded spending 3 hours getting ready for belly dance gigs. Maybe it’s because I am transforming myself into someone else? Maybe it’s because I love performing and dressing up? Most definitely! Every gig I had a different look whether it was different hair, makeup, or costuming. We had gigs almost every week so I got fast and efficient at it. I hope when the pandemic is over we can perform again, I’ve missed it. 

Yesterday morning I heard the birds chirping. What does that have to do with this post? To me when the birds start chirping again spring isn’t that far off. Instead of my usual dark toenail color, I went with light lavender…a sure sign of spring in my mind. A sign of hopefulness.

Why do I hate being pampered? Is it a deep-rooted thing? Maybe it’s that I hate relying on other people and can’t sit still long enough to enjoy it? The definition of pampered is being treated with extreme and excessive care. Am I nutty enough to not feel like I am worthy of it? Whatever the reason…it’s just not for me. 

I wrote about my one grandmother that I called Nana a couple weeks ago, but today I want to tell you about my Mema…my other grandmother.

In my post about Nana, I was the nurturer when I spent time with her since she lost her eyesight. Mema always took care of me. As much as I loved my Nana, I loved Mema with a different kind of love that I can’t explain. I loved it that she paid attention to me, made me snacks to eat, and played with me.

As I mentioned in my Nana story, I told you that I spent quite a lot of time with both my grandmothers. My grandfather Russ, Mema’s husband passed away very suddenly when I was 9. My other grandfather passed away when I was 4.

I remember my grandfather who I called Pa. I recall that he was one of the first real deaths that I understood. It was strange going to Mema’s house after Pa died. My dad took his father’s death very hard. They were extremely close and it was painful to watch. Mema moved to a smaller place after Pa died. I loved her upstairs and downstairs house and missed it after she moved. We used to drive by to look at it and it always looked the same.

We used to go to Mema and Pa’s house a lot for holidays and Sunday dinners. After his death, I would take a ride with my dad after work to go say hi to Mema and check to see how she was doing.My dad had tons of family members around, but he was also very close to his mother.

Saturday nights were the nights I slept over at Mema’s if I wasn’t at Nana. I was company for both of them and they babysat me…a double win for my parents I guess.

When I slept over at either of my grandmother’s houses I slept in the big bed with them. I slept on the right side at both of their places and that’s the side I’ve slept on since Marty and I got married. Side note…Marty wanted to switch sides on our 10th anniversary which I agree to for 5 years, then I told him it was ridiculous and I wanted my side back.

Mema used to go to the beauty parlor and get her hair done once a week like most women did. I loved sitting on her bed while at her dresser she would wrap her head with pink toilet paper and secure it with bobby pins when she slept. She said it helped her hair stay in all week. I guess it did because until she got a perm in the 1980s her hair always looked good to me.

I loved looking at all the pretty things on her dresser. She had a fancy mirror and brush set that was black lacquer with rhinestones. I loved her wedding ring box. I used to open and close it carefully. She always took her wedding ring off before bed because she put cream on her hands.

Mema would rub ponds cream on her face and she would do mine too. She also would brush out my long hair. My favorite part was that she would very lightly rub my back until I fell asleep. I guess she did this when I was much younger when she babysat me at our house. The next night after my story and glass of water, I wanted my mother to rub my back the way Mema did, she told me she didn’t have time for that nonsense and to go to sleep. I know she told Mema not to get me used to stuff like that. I heard her complain to my father about it while I laying in bed. I had to maybe 4 or 5 at the time, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

When we would go to Mema’s house on Sundays for dinner I sat on the floor watching tv. I was always sitting way too close, everyone would warn me. Meanwhile, Mema was in the kitchen cooking. I never cooked with Mema, did the dishes, or even cleared the table as I did at Nana’s house or at home. It was great! It was like having a day off to just relax.

Mema was an average cook, she cooked comfort food and I liked everything she made except for her meatballs. I would ask my parents what Mema was making for Sunday dinner and when they told me spaghetti and meatballs I would cry. They had too much oregano in them and they were dry like the hamburgers that she made under the broiler. My parents told me I had to eat them, so I did.

As I got older my dad and I would stop at Mema’s by ourselves or with the other child they adopted, but usually, it was just the two of us. As soon as we would walk in she would ask if we were hungry. We really didn’t have to answer because before we knew it she was in the kitchen making us boiled ham and cheese on white bread “samiches” or my dad’s favorite bolognie and cheese samich. He called them rubber sandwiches.

Other times we would go and she would make the two of us tea and my dad coffee. We would dip Stella Dora Anisette Toast into our tea or sometimes Stella Dora Breakfast cookies. There was usually those wafer cookies that were chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. I liked the chocolate ones the best. I have Mema’s red apple cookie jar displayed proudly on the top shelf in my kitchen. Such a simple thing means so much to me!

Back to her tea, I am not really a tea drinker but when I do make a cup I made Mema tea which was light and sweet made with regular Lipton tea bags. She had these little teapot-shaped dishes to put your teabag on.

My most favorite thing of all was that Mema played cards with me at her dining room table after dinner. My parents sat in the living room watching tv while we played. We also played tic tac toe and checkers. We would play rummy, go fish or war. We played for a long time and now even as an adult I can say that I really think she liked playing with me and had fun. She and I would howl laughing at some of the things she would say about the cards she was dealt. She did it not out of obligation, and I never once had to ask her if she wanted to play with me. It was her idea and she did it because she wanted to. I could feel that even when I was little.

When I got old enough to drive I would pop in every once in a while to say hi, had a ham and cheese “samich” and a Stella Dora for the road. When I started dating Marty he would go with me. When we moved to Vermont after we got married, we would stop from time to time and visit with her when we came back to Jersey.

I used to go to NJ with Noah when he was little by ourselves. I was a stay-at-home mom and Marty worked a lot so I would go down and visit my parents and Mema. Noah remembers the two of them and playing a game with sponge balls tossing them back and forth to each other. Sam got to visit her as well, but I don’t think he remembers her.

I checked in on her more often after my dad passed away since I was in NJ at least every other week to be with my mother. Mema took my dad’s death hard. I never remembered seeing her cry at his funeral, but I had my head so far up my own ass with my own grief maybe I just didn’t notice. She was stoic and quiet, it was heartbreaking because that wasn’t who she was. She told me a year later that you never get over the death of your child. So sad. I had two children and couldn’t even think about it.

From the time I was very little until I was a grown woman with my own children, I will always remember how she kissed me goodbye. “Go give Mema a kiss goodbye” my parents would tell me. Like they had to tell me? I loved her goodbye kisses. She would take my face in her hands and kiss me on one cheek about 10 times going mmm mmm mmm mmm. When I saw her do this with my boys it made me so happy they got Mema kisses too.

When I think back all I can remember is that Mema was genuinely nice to me. I think we really enjoyed each other’s company. I was her first grandchild and she treated me like I was special. What she and I had was more than special. I am very lucky to have had her as a part of my life. Ok, I have to go wipe my eyes and blow my nose now.

Today was delivery day for The Vermont Spätzle Company. We used to do all of our own deliveries, but now we have the amazing folks at Wilcox Ice Cream drop ship our frozen spätzle all over VT for us.

We do the deliveries to all of our New York wholesale customers. Some have some smaller deliveries weekly, but our other larger wholesale accounts get a lot of product at one time every 4-6 weeks. 

We like to deliver to as many of our NY accounts as we can at once since we are already there. It seems like once we receive that first large order, more NY orders start flooding. I always “feel it in my bones” that we will get at least one more doozy of an order in the next day or two. 

Within moments of my prediction, the order came in while I ran into the house for a second. Marty started asking me to check our delivery board for something and I immediately saw it…The Niskayuna Co-op needed a delivery. Ha, I knew it! Even the guy from the Niskayuna Co-op named Damien who orders the spätzle knows I’ve been right about my last three predictions. 

When I worked at school I had the same “feel it in my bones” predictions about when the health inspector would come. I taught everyone that whenever you left the kitchen for the day it should be ready for a health inspection first thing the next morning.

I would give everyone the heads up when I had that feeling and sure enough, when he would walk into the multipurpose room wearing his hat and heading towards the kitchen, we would all laugh. After the inspection, the kids would always ask me, “Mrs. Irion how did you know?” Just for the record we always scored in the mid to high 90’s on our inspection. We got a 99 once, he never gave out 100’s. That day he couldn’t find anything wrong so he took off 1 point for a stained ceiling tile in the bathroom down the hallway. 😂 You never argue with the health inspector, I thanked him and said see you in 6 months.

You knew the health inspector was there for an inspection when he had his hat on. A couple of times he was in the school for a different reason and he just stopped by without his hat on. The first thing he said was, “Don’t worry I’m just stopping in to say hello.” Whew! One time he actually bought a blueberry muffin and a coffee from me! This meant he thought I had a clean kitchen and trusted me with his stomach. LOL

So we’ve been working feverishly all week to fill all of our orders, flash freezing the product, boxing it all up, and loading it into our van this morning. We were glad to see that the snowy forecast was wrong and we only had about half an inch. The roads were just wet so we are home free. Jinx! 

As I stepped out of our back door I slide a foot down our driveway and caught myself from falling. I guess I screamed because Marty heard me in the house. All I could hear in my head was The NY Rangers hockey team’s announcer say, “What a save and a beaut!”

We loaded up all our orders and double and triple-checked our invoices and counts then headed to Saratoga. Our first stop was Healthy Living. We couldn’t pull in or get into the loading dock because a regular size UPS truck was blocking the entire thing. When we are in the business van we are on our best behavior. If we didn’t have the van, both of us would have told him what an asshole he was. 

This driver literally had a bunch of delivery vans lined up waiting for him to take his sweet ass time walking back to the truck. I almost blew a gasket keeping my mouth shut. When we could finally get near the delivery area we loaded up a u-boat with our frozen spätzle and wheeled it inside to be checked in. They take the temperature of the spätzle to make sure it is below freezing. Our spätzle was -19 degrees this morning. 🙂

After making delivery number one we were off to the Niskayuna Co-op with Damien’s order. He wasn’t there, damn it, I wanted to joke around about my prediction and being psychic. Next time I will because…there will be the next time. We loaded up a cart with their product had it checked in and headed on our way. 

The third stop was to the Honest Weight Co-op in Albany. This place is always jam-packed! There were delivery trucks and vans everywhere parking wherever they could in the crowded parking lot. We saw some of the same van drivers we saw at our first stop. Fridays are delivery days for farmers. Honest Weight is a weekly delivery for the most part. Marty usually delivers to them on Saturday mornings before the Troy Farmers Market. It’s nice that for the last two weeks we’ve been able to bring it on Friday. He can leave for the market almost 30 minutes later, which is a lot at 6 am. 

Next, we hopped on the NY Thruway and headed to Athens, NY. We made a quick stop at our friend’s business The Crimson Valley Nursery in Coxsackie to drop off a bag spätzle for Danny & Jen. We even got a tour of their greenhouse. It was so warm in there. It reminded me of Frosty the snowman when he gets trapped in the greenhouse and melts. I cried so hard when I was little and still cry today. Weird enough, it has to do with that damn attachment disorder I have.  I’ve worked through a lot of it, which is so healing I can’t even tell you!

Our final delivery was to Field Goods, an online farmers market that services some parts of NY, NJ, and CT. At Field Goods, we can drive right into their warehouse and unload their delivery right onto a pallet and then drive it to the freezer with a manual forklift. I could tell Marty liked the forklift part, I liked that it was hot pink!

By this time we were both starving! I have been craving these smoked chicken wings with a peach, dijon chipotle sauce that we get at a place that we found back in November in Hudson. The place is called American Glory Bbq and now we’ve had two delicious lunches there. My dad always said don’t go back to a place too much you are bound to get a bad meal to ruin it. 🤣

We decided since it was still early we walked around the town of Hudson. The shops are all antique shops, boutiques, pastry shops, and restaurants. I am sure the place is jam-packed with NYC people in the summer. 

As we walked around we found some residential streets. The absolutely beautiful architecture was clearly from the 1600 & the 1700s. The homes were all so well take care of. The former carriage houses were now garages but still looked like a horse and buggy belonged in them. 

Walking around was truly like taking a step back in time. It was quiet, no cars or people around and we played tourists. We can’t wait to explore the side streets more the next time when it isn’t as cold and snowy. It’s fun to imagine who and what it was like walking down those streets almost 300 years ago as we did today. I’ll put money on it that no other full-time spatzle makers strolled down Allen or Warren Street.

We are almost home and I am writing in the car. I asked Marty if he was happy I was writing because it was so quiet. He said no, but I am never quiet, so I’m sure he liked the peaceful ride home from my usual blabbing. The ride went fast for me lost in this blog post.

So that’s a day in the life of The Vermont Spätzle Company. It’s nice to give people a glance into our business and they can see that we don’t just wave a magic wand and make it all happen. I’m not good with magic wands, but I am one hell of a good psychic! 🔮

Last night I wrote two blog posts. They were both in my head so I wanted to write them down. The Porchetta one was food-oriented and was fine. The other one about music and leftovers had no ending.

This morning Marty sounded like Jon my writing mentor. “Can I tell you something about your music and leftovers piece?” he asked. I said sure knowing I dropped the ball somewhere. “You started strong, but had no ending.”

That son of a bitch was right again! He beat Jon Katz to the punch!

I went back and finished up the piece tying the whole post together. If you read it already and thought it was lackluster it was. You could go back and read the end, or not.

No excuses, but now I have another rule for my writing… the next time I am dead to the world, I will proofread my stuff before I publish it. My first rule is to never write drunk. LOL!

These have been a few very busy weeks for us. We have been in production so much and have been up to our elbows in spatzle. Tomorrow we have to make a bunch of big deliveries all around NY, so we needed to get all the orders filled and make enough product for Marty at the Troy Farmer’s Market on Saturday and for a bunch of curbside pick-up orders.

We had to make spatzle on Sunday this week, you know my Sunday kind of love day? I never get tired of making the product or even packaging it…it’s the dishes that I dreaded doing this morning.

When we got up today I knew it was going to be another big, long production day with a couple of deliveries afterward. While we were having our coffee I kept saying I don’t want to do the dishes today! Ugh!

When you think of dirty dishes in a normal production kitchen they are nothing compared to ours. Hell, I washed a million dishes when I worked in the kitchens at school, even the worst pans in the world weren’t this bad.

After I figured out how to mix our ingredients in a special way then I had to increase my batch sizes. The thing that I didn’t count on was that I had to figure out how the heck to get the dishes clean from the unconventional ingredients we use.

Without exaggerating, it took me six months of experimenting with different cleaning methods, water temperatures, soaps, rags, and scrubbies, etc until I figured it out.

It takes me as long to wash all the production dishes as it takes to make a couple of hundred pounds of spatzle. After the production dishes are done I have all the bins to wash that hold the spatzle after it has been drained and cooled. Ugh.

Today I just wasn’t feeling it. I needed something to drag me through this production day. Music is always my answer. We listen to music every day in our production kitchen, but today had to be something to kick my ass into motion.

Broadway Music Radio on Pandora was the ticket. A lot of the music was from newer Broadway Musicals with a few oldies thrown in for good measure. Song after song I was singing behind my dust protection mask making the day go quickly. Some songs like one of my favorites “Cellblock Tango” from Chicago came on and I went into a whole dance number.

I took tap, ballet, and toe or point throughout my whole childhood starting at the age of two. I love that I can still jump into a tap number at any given moment. I just need a 5,6,7,8 and I am dancing away.

Although it was a long day, we filled all the orders we need for tomorrow’s deliveries and the weekend. Mission accomplished.

I’ve been cooking real lunches and dinners all week, but I needed to lean on some leftovers for the next couple of dinners.

Tonight I took the leftover mashed potatoes from our Porchetta dinner from Marty’s birthday and turned it into loaded potato soup. It was easy, quick, and filling. I also took a container of leftover short ribs and gravy out of the freezer for tomorrow night. We are going to have short rib poutine which is one of our favorites and will be quick and easy after a day of deliveries and getting back late.

At the end of the day, or a long week I should say, music yanked me through not only dish washing, but also holding myself accountable in the gym. I worked out on some days that I just wanted to come inside and sit down, but I didn’t I got in there and gave it my all.

As far as leftovers? They are a lifesaver! They are the greatest thing since sliced bread! Look for a blog post down the road that will be called something like The Joy of Leftovers or Lovely Leftovers.I will talk about how to not only use leftovers, but how to plan them into your weekly menu.

***I am planning on taking all of you on our delivery route with us tomorrow. There is snow in the forecast, so that should make things even more interesting. We are planning on hitting the road early, we have a lot of stops to make.

Long before the pandemic, before people actually started caring about toilet paper and hoarding whatever they could literally get their hands on, I noticed how ridiculous the math is on each package of paper products. 

Each brand has at least 3 or 4 different types of toilet paper and each of those has different size rolls. Single, super, double, mega, super mega are just to name a few. 

Consider that each supermarket chain has at least 40 different choices of toilet paper to choose from is beyond crazy. 

Paper towels are the same story. Lots of brands with different types of towels and a huge assortment of sizes. Single, double, select a size sheets, mega…the list goes on and on. 

This morning we were getting ourselves organized in the production kitchen and I looked at the packages of Bounty we had on hand. Remember, I only bought one package at a time when I saw them I didn’t hoard a bunch. We need good paper towels in our kitchen. 😜

It actually made me laugh that we had so many different mathematical equations we are supposed to solve! 

I remember a YouTube video that went viral during the quarantine lockdown. A dad had a full on rant about toilet paper math. He sat down and actually figured out the math! 

The dad calculated how many sheets each size roll had, each package had, how many feet per roll and the best one of all he figured out how many shits (his word) if you used 20 sheets of toilet paper per shit. 

A lot of other bored quarantined folks also made videos with their calculations, some even weighed the rolls. I am relieved that other people besides myself thought about this crap….pun was intended. 

Each person on the videos ranted about the toilet paper brand companies and how misleading and confusing their advertising and marketing were. 

The toilet paper calculators also ranted on about how much toilet paper people hoarded and actually needed for a whole year. They concluded that no family could ever take that many deuces or number twos.

Now that the store shelves are finally restocked with toilet paper and paper towels, just take a gander at the ridiculousness of all the mathematical equations that are being marketed to us. 

Jon, my writing mentor told me whenever I write a piece I need to keep the readers in mind and think “why should they give a shit” about what I am writing. In this case, the whole story is about that very thing, giving or should I say taking one, and how much toilet paper everyone needs. 😬