Sometimes I imagine that God created us with shelves for storing the various attributes
of our souls. But we have closed them off with cabinet doors, thus blocking others from
seeing what's inside.
People can only guess at our inner treasures by observing how we react to what happens
around us. Our cabinet doors stop them from learning more. Only when we allow them to peek
behind our doors can they discover why we do what we do.
This brings us to the familiar expression, "If the cabinets could only talk."
The walls that people sometimes wish could talk would only be able to relate
the obvious, such as, "The wife jumped up and down on the husband's shirt."
The walls would not be able to explain why the wife stomped scuff marks onto
her husband's clothing.
For that kind of in-depth information, one would have to open the kitchen cabinets and
talk to the condiments and food boxes.
This is best done when the people who live in the house are off in some other room so
that no one will say, "What are you doing rummaging through my cabinets? May I find
something for you? Are you hungry?" This, of course, would be a ruse to sidetrack you
from your research.
When you do get the chance, open up any cabinet at random and ask yourself, "What
is it that I'm really seeing here?" At all times remember that you are not to see the
food as food but as clues.
If you concentrate carefully, you might hear:
"It's not fair! The Sugar Pops get eaten four times as fast as my Wheaties."
"Ah, quit complaining. I'm the last bag of raisin oatmeal and I've been shoved
back in this dark corner for so long, only the moths have found me."
The sound of Snickers come from the top shelf. "Who likes raisin oatmeal anyway?
I'm the favorite around here."
"Oh yeah?" the prunes reply. "Too bad for you that you've been
sacrificed for Lent."
"Too bad for you," the Snickers retort, "that no one even
thinks about you unless someone gets --."
Having heard enough, you shut the door and try another cabinet. This time you discover
triplet containers of table salt.
"Why so many?" you ask, and you might get this answer:
"The husband does the grocery shopping in this household, and sometimes he gets to
the spice aisle and concludes that surely the old salt must have gotten all used up this
week."
"Not only that," comes a muffled sound from the cabinet below the counter,
"but he also interprets 'school snacks' on the grocery list as meaning only one
thing."
You faintly detect more Snickers from behind the first cabinet door. To find out more,
you stoop down to the lower cabinet and peek inside. Approximately 412 packages of Motts
applesauce tumble out.
"And do you think he'd remember to buy little plastic spoons to pack in the lunch
boxes with us?" the Motts ask saucily.
Now you begin to understand why the wife stomps on her husband's shirts.
