If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a honey jar with crumbs in it.
Having come from a large family where everyone had his or her knife in the honey pot, I recently threatened my own youngsters with a month of plain peanut butter if they even thought about sticking an already-used kitchen utensil into the honey jar.
Since then, even the son who argues food all gets fixed up anyway knows better than to let so much as one microscopic particle of toast fall into the Maid O' Clover bottle when his mom's around.
But the threat of spending thirty days without any honey hasn't kept those kids from trying bizarre methods of applying the sticky stuff to their sandwiches.
In other words, my children will do anything to save themselves the trouble of getting out a clean knife, dipping it in the jar, and letting all that bee-spun sweetness drizzle to the desired spot.
I actually caught one enterprising child turning his knife around, grasping the peanut butter-laden blade with his grimy fingers, and aiming the handle into the bottle.
Another of my littles (or was it my husband?) dumped the amber contents of a half-pint directly into the half-empty Jiff jar, thereby creating a one-step peanut butter and honey sandwich.
But it was four-year-old Julie who finally taught me there are worse things than contaminated honey.
I had come into the kitchen just as she finished pouring herself an afternoon snack. There was honey down the side of the bottle, honey on the counter, honey oozing down the cupboard doors, and honey on the floor.
Speechless, I watched the little girl methodically wipe sticky fingers in her hair before picking up a slab of bread that had enough honey oozing from the edges to keep a colony of bees alive all winter.
Beside myself, I opened my mouth with the intention of taking away that child's honey privileges for the rest of her life. But Julie was way ahead of me.
"Look, Mommy," she said with a sweet as honey look upon her face, "I didn't get no crumbs inside the jar!"
