Dear Sister Norma,

Last week I was fixing breakfast and I took the little plastic jar full of your strawberry jam you sent out of the fridge and it slipped from my hand. I tried to stop it but knocked the lid off and the jar landed on the floor upside down.

This left a big glob on the floor and I didn't want to waste all of it so I took two of Elsbeth's spatulas and managed to get the top half of the sticky pile back into the empty container.

This still left a big smear on the floor and under the lip of the fridge. So I took a dish towel I found and wiped it up and then took a sponge and got it wet and got the rest of the jam up. I then got another dish towel and dried the floor.

Towels work great for picking up spilled stuff and you could never tell I goofed. Besides I threw the towels in the clothes washer so she would not have to worry about them.

Elsbeth came down and the floor had dried so I decided not to tell her and have her worry because I might have gotten some germs from trying to save the half of your jam that did not touch the floor. I don't think she noticed the jar was only half full, at least she did not say anything.

I am writing this to ask if you had any more of the strawberry jam.

Your brother Jerry

Dear Jerry,

I will send you more jam.

Elsbeth called me and told me she found her dish towels in the washer. She had put some clothes in and was putting in some soap powder when she spotted the messy towels with the goopy jam.

Did it ever occur to you that paper towels will work just fine and you can throw them away?

Your sister Norma

Dear Sis,

I thought about that but not until I had used the cloth towels. Besides, I was in a hurry as the green light was blinking on the coffee maker and the toaster light had gone off and the toast was getting cold.

Furthermore I was trying to read the front page of the paper and I could not find the dried cranberries for my Fruit Loops. And I was trying to open a jar of peaches and the lid was on really tight and nothing in the drawers would work so I was whacking it with a funny little metal hammer she uses to pound things and it spilled some juice on the counter and I had to clean that up, too.

Cooking breakfast is really hard trying to coordinate everything.

I watch those cooking shows on television and they never spill anything. But I am not going to quit trying. She gets such a kick out of cleaning up after I have cleaned up.

Your brother Jerry