16th and Island - Peanut Butter Contempt, Part 1

(These posts may be shocking but they are honest).

      It was Wednesday, December 1st. Only 24 days more until Christmas. This will be the best Christmas we have had in a while. First time in years we can afford to send Christmas presents to all 20 kids in our families. Thanks God, I thought. All the presents were ordered online. We could even afford to mail them early this year, once they came! Plus the Christmas party for Pete's Biblical Discipleship class was coming up next week. I was planning on making lots of spaghetti -spaghetti with meatballs, spaghetti with Italian sausage, vegetable spaghetti, and gluten free spaghetti. We'd even already bought our Christmas tree from the boy scout lot; we just needed to decorate it. Last year we bought our tree a week before Christmas, after a fight about how we would pay the rent. 
         "The only thing bad about this month, babe," I told Pete as we sat making peanut butter sandwiches to pass out to the homeless with our churches youth group the following night, "is I have so many parties to go to. I like throwing parties, but I hate going to them! How can I stay on my diet if I am surrounded by constant temptation? And so many of them are almost mandatory. I hate mandatory parties!" I complained as I tried not to taste my homemade marmalade leftover from Thanksgiving that we were spreading on the sandwiches.
   "I hate mandatory parties too! And I hate all the craziness at Starbucks right now. In fact," Pete teased, "I hate people!"
         "Why are you getting online right now? We have a lot more sandwiches to make!", I whined, smearing off-brand peanut butter onto Texas Toast bought at the 99 cent store.
    "Listen to this babe. This will get you into the Christmas Spirit." Pete played "I Hate People" from Albert Finney's "Scrooge". Pete began singing along,
 "Perpetrating evil as they roam the earth in hoardes,
Feeding on their fellow men, reaping rich rewards,
Contaminating everything they see,
Corrupting honest men like me! I hate people, I HATE people!"
     I started laughing. "But what about the homeless? Do don't hate them do you?"
     "I despise them, I abhor them," Pete croned, quoting more Finney.
             "Pete!!" I chastised, "stop! That's not funny!" I couldn't stop laughing.
     Pete's response was to give me his, "I know I am obnoxious, but you have to admit I am hilarious" look. Then he wrote the word "Contempt" on the peanut butter he was spreading.
          "Pete, you are so horrible!" I protested, tears coming into my eyes from laughing so hard.
    "But at least I can still make you laugh," was his wicked grinning response.