Her way

Mrs. Peerless always needs to be right. If she is wrong she will make a huge effort to explain why she was mistaken; she needs to justify everything. I do think a lot of what irritates me is how much we are alike except I am usually RIGHT while she just thinks she is! For example today at dinner I gave Fiona, (FAKE...remember) the 14-year-old girl, a good sturdy Cutco steak knife to cut her thick slice of spiral ham that was leftover from Easter this past Sunday. Now leftovers is a subject all to itself that I will certainly touch on and come back to time and time again. As for the ham, it needed to be cut, hence the knife. Mrs. asked in an agitated voice for Fiona to hand her the knife while Mrs. handed her an over used, bent tip, ground down handle from multiple trips down the disposal, crappy knife that hardly slices butter. I then asked in my disobedient tone, "Why can't she use that knife"? I thought the reply would have to do with her being so inept, as this teen most certainly is. Mrs. P: "That knife is for steaks." Me:"Are you serious?" "Yes. If you use it for other purposes it gets dull." Meanwhile I was the first person to remove the protective sleeve from the never used set of twelve knives. The housekeeper, Lupe, (...oh, yes, tons on her to come!) told me they had been in the drawer for at lease 5 years! I couldn't let it go. "Mrs. P, are you really telling me that steak knives are only to be used for cutting steak and no other meats or foods?" She replied rather condescendingly, "Yes, Matilda (my FAKE name...last reminder), I am." I was just in the mood. "Mrs. P, it is called a steak knife to identify it's size in comparison to others in a set. While it is the perfect length and has the ideal serrated edge for a steak it is not SOLELY intended to be used for steaks. True, some ordinary knives dull from misuse, but this is a Cutco knife. It can cut through a penny! If it breaks or dulls during ordinary use it is 100 % guaranteed. (Credit for that information goes to RK...real initials...for his fabulous Cutco demonstration, his first job, his freshman year of college.) You can certainly use them to cut a piece of ham." She simply said, "I'd rather you not". I said, "Fair enough". 

Later when washing dishes I used that very knife to scrape melted cheese off of a Pyrex dish. I also used it to spread mayo on a ham sandwich Fiona would have for lunch the following day along with an orange that I felt compelled to cut into slices. Finally that superior knife was used to cut the tiny plastic rings that held a new pair of kitchen scissors affixed to a piece of industrial strength cardboard. For a month those scissors laid right next to the other 11 sleeved and one newly un-sleeved steak knife. 

For Real