The craisin on the floor of my permanent record

Permanent record.  That’s a scary phrase growing up isn’t it?  Especially in junior high school, the mere thought of something going on your permanent record was enough to scare me and most of my friends straight.  Now that I’m a parent the craisin, AKA, the dried cranberry is something our kids love, but have become the bane of our cleaning life.

First off, we love craisins.  It’s a healthy all natural snack that goes a long way.  The fact that you can seemingly buy a 50 pound bag of them at Costco for $8 helps too.

However, craisins do what they do as they’re being snacked on by a roaming 5 year old.  They fall to the ground.  I know the kids say that they’ll only snack in the dining room table-and they always do what they say don’t they?

No.  Their accomplice (brother/sister/pet), possibly with the assistance of the craisin lobby, make the craisins fall to the ground.  Unless you pick up the thirsty version of the cranberry immediately someone will step on it.  The only exception is a dog with long hair that does the dirty work for you and has it stick to their fur.  Failing that, the craisin will be flattened into the epidural of your floor.

10 out of 10 floor dermatologists agree, craisins are the leading cause of floor acne.  Floor acne is no joke, even when set to the musical styling’s of Bryan Adams.

On some days the majority of the craisins do make their way from our child’s snack cup to his mouth.    These are happy times.  They remind us of how healthy, versatile and good craisins can be.  These are the good craisins.

The bad craisns are the ones that escape and go to the floor.  Like a two-bit convict who escapes prison.  These craisins are the fruit equivalent of Robert Kelper’s character, T-Bag in Prison Break, except not as likeable.

In the fruit jail world that they escaped from they must have hung out with Cheerios and rice, who were kept in a separate wing.  Rice and Cheerios have the level of annoyance that craisns have, but on different surfaces.  Their audience is reserved for plates or bowls.

Cook some rice, it’s yummy.  Leave that moist rice on the plate for an hour or two and it’s harder to remove than houseguests after Thanksgiving dinner. Ditto the rogue Cheerio that is left inside a bowl.  They cling on for dear life as if they saw that Super Glue commercial in the 70’s once too often.

At the end of the day at least once a day, once a week, when we have a party, we get on our hands and knees with our trusted putty scrapper.  Spray, scrape, scrape, get out the old toothbrush, spray again and brush.  Then, the next morning our children ask for craisins again and the circle of life continue.

In the end times there will be cockroaches, ground-in craisins on the floor and cats doing cute things without video cameras around, because, it’s the end times.