Annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Summer, with the menz doing all the cooking and cleanup. Primary goal: fellowship, the fun f working toether, menz taking ove the wimminz kitchen and aprons. Secondary: $$ to cover costs.

This year I hope to find sugar-free syrup.

Had a funny thing last year-- a visiting couple had brought their own syrup-- they'd been to many such events, they said, and didn't trust that the syrup we had on hand would be "real." But we ONLY use the real stuff-- it's MADE HERE so we know how to get it cheapish.

They tasted ours on a spopon and prnounced it excellent. Now we were laiughing about their worries byut acknlweding that it's only sensible to carry your own if you have great syrup already on hand; "We're not really paying for the food with our ticket-- the tickets're just a chance to get together and meet some new people," they said, "so we don't mind paying for the ticket AND our own syrup."

We ate... we visited.... Their almost-full bottle was still sitting on the table when another coupla peeps came in who did not know it was theirs-- they assumed it had been set out by us, so in mid-visit-chat they picked it up, passed it back and forth-- and drained it DRY onto their 'cakes while the bottle's "owners" jaws dropped. Their manners precluded saying anything, but these were two total strangers they had not meant to "cover." And that syrup had cost them a LOT.

As the chatting went on I excused myself rather royally (to be sure they could not forestall my next move.) I grinned, picked up their bottle, said, "I guess this needs a refill, but all the volunteers are tied up. I'll be right back." I made off with it to the kitchen and refilled it from our gallon.

As I got back to the table, I grinned a silent "ssssh" and said cheerily to the lady/owner, "Ready for some more syrup?" She said she could take a drop, doused the fresh pancake a volunteer had brought, and then set the bottle CLOSE beside her plate.

While the newer guests weren't looking she popped it into her purse and grinned a "sssh" back to me. Now we were in a conspiracy to make the other guests welcome, but not let them eat up somebody else's syrup and not under any circumstances let them know they had done a booboo.

When the newcomers looked for more syrup, why, we just didn't know WHERE it had gone, but we DID find a pitcher-full (the one we HAD set out, now un-used), from which they could take all they wanted (and they did).

These syrup-guzzlers left never knowing they'd "transgressed," and the first couple left knowing that WE had set out better syrup than the primo stuff they'd brought!

All in a day's work, and maybe ya had to have been there to see how funny it was, but manners is a delicate thing in these parts; there were at least 5 cultures present in the whole incident, each one with its own "code" of manners, and there are some pretty sharp old ladies here whose praise over the incident meant a lot to me, a fairly "recent arrival." They thought it was hilarious--

~S~