Two fry pans

When I wandered into the antique store I found a tin-lined copper fry pan. Having been unhappy with my two enamel lined pots and one enamel fry pan (I only own four cooking vessels, five if you count a pie plate and that serves me to make meals for myself and guests with absolutely no problem whatsoever) for a long time, I grabbed it. It is my goal now to replace each with copper and tin as I come across them. However, I haven’t thrown out the old one. I am 98% sure I will never use the old one again.

Today I went to A 10 BAL, a local store where all items are under 10 Euros (bal) to buy nails so the new and old pan could hang on the beam that runs the length of my flat. The other fry pan is pretty, one of my three criteria on keeping something. Only after I left did I realize that I was short changed 10 Euros.

In the great cosmic universe, I suppose there is nothing wrong with having one extra pan, but I can’t help but believe only half kiddingly that the 10 Euro loss were a punishment for allowing an extra possession to creep into my household.

Then as if the universe was reinforcing the message when I checked alternet.org http://alternet.org/mediaculture/24545/ there was an interview with a psychiatrist who wrote American Mania, that “urges Americans to stop our endless quest of accumulation unless we want to witness a mass psychological and economic meltdown.”

I don’t think I will meltdown because of an extra fry pan. I don’t believe my financial life is threatened, but having that extra fry pan is annoying.

If I haven’t used it by the time I leave for Geneva, it goes out, probably to the kids downstairs who have nothing, not out of philosophical believe, but out of youth and poorness.

Today a fry pan, tomorrow an extra dish, then before I know it, my flat is full. Since I cleaned out my mother’s house after she died, I made the decision that when my daughter has to clean up my possessions, she will be able to do it in a morning with plenty of time to drink tea as she does it. Then again, she may never clean out this place choosing to rent it.

And when there are so many real problems in the world, worrying about an extra fry pan is probably not important, but since I can't stop pollution or the war, a fry pan is controllable.

On verra as they say. On verra with the fry pan too.