Basket Case

It was when my cousin Cinderella was in T'ranna the week of Mother's Day, and spent a night at my place, helping me paint my bathroom, that we had the conversation about baskets:

"Your mother doesn't know it yet, but she's getting all my baskets," I told Cinderella, indicating the large blue floor basket in the corner of my livingroom. It was filled with, you guessed it, baskets. Smaller ones; about a dozen. "I figure, if she doesn't want them, your dad can always use them to start a fire in the fire pit."

My Uncle D. always needs fire starter material, especially in the summer, when they barbeque almost every night.

"That's true," said Cinderellla, "and you're probably right, she won't want them."

"I don't know why I have so many baskets," I continued, "I mean, I know for a fact I've never actually bought a basket. Have you?"

"No! I know what you mean, though," Cinderella added. "Where do they come from?"

"And it's not bad enough that they just arrive from nowhere, but that they keep increasing in number. I'm convinced they multiply on their own."

"You put them in the back of your closet, and try to ignore them, and the next time you look, there are new ones."

"You too?"

"Everyone. But you know..." Cinderella was really thinking about it now. "Last week I had some people over for dinner, and I remember thinking, I wish I had a basket to put these rolls in."

"You probably did."

"I probably did! But I didn't think I did at the time. You know what I mean?"

"That's the thing about baskets. You get them from people, usually with stuff in them. And when the stuff is gone, you're left with the basket..."

"And you think to yourself, well, this is a nice basket, it'll come in handy some day."

"Like, for example, when you have dinner company and a nice basket of rolls is in order," I pointed out.

"Right. So you keep it. I mean, you can't throw it in the garbage — it's a perfectly good basket!"

"But here's the problem..."

"I know..."

"When you do have an occasion that calls for a basket, you completely forget that you have them."

"Exactly."

"Which is why your mother is getting them."

"You know, though, that as soon as you give them away you'll need one, right?"

"I know."

In the next story, Postmodern Sass learns that her best friend Kay will be, will be, coming to visit her in California.