How Baked Beans Can Fly

After a great afternoon I went to my parent’s house for dinner. Dad fired up the grill for some hamburger and hot dogs, while Jason fired up the stove for some baked beans. It is a family affair after all. Mom is still on the “no weight on the foot” regimen, so her absence from the kitchen has begun to weigh on everyone’s stomachs. Nonetheless, a family meal on a Friday evening is the best medicine for an aching foot! We all assembled our burgers and dogs and headed into the living room so that we could be with Mom while we ate. Jason led grace and as usual he was so anxious to eat that he started to push his words together – by the end we usually have “Christ Amen” instead of “Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen!”

We were all enjoying being with one another and reminiscing about years gone by: dogs we’ve loved and tearfully had to say goodbye to (some right in front of our eyes, others shielded from our childish hearts), memories of sibling rivalries (some recent, some of the past) – when all of a sudden Erin put her fork down and said, “I just saw a bug fly over in front of the TV, and I don’t like how it looks.”

We all turned our eyes toward the TV, and sure enough on the floor was what looked to be a stink bug – a common insect to find in your house when you live in the woods. Erin again let us know that she didn’t like it one bit, and Dad saved the day by getting up and walking over to get the bug out of the living room. Only when he got a little closer, a smile started to creep across his face and he declared, “It’s not a stink bug, it’s a baked bean!”

All eyes turned to Jason who had a sheepish grin on his face (well , really, when doesn’t he have a sheepish grin on his face). “ I guess I flung it off of my fork?”

We all started laughing and couldn’t believe that Erin had actually seen the baked bean come off of Jason’s fork and her mind convinced her eyes that it was a bug flying by. I love my family.

Now you know how baked beans can fly.

I can’t wait for my weekend.