Grandma was whispering.
Why? I don’t know. As far as I know, we were the only two people in her spacious farm house out in Long Branch in Appling County.
We were in the kitchen and she told me that she needed to show me something.
The kitchen featured a bar with cabinets along one side. The bar formed an island there separating the kitchen from the den.
I said she was whispering, but the pitch and tone of her voice were sweet and gentle and sometimes, being hard of hearing affected her volume.
Let’s just say she was quieter and more softspoken than usual but whatever unseen sprite might have been listening could probably hear her.
Again, to my knowledge, no one was in the house.
She looked around and then bent down to open the cabinet.
“See, look a’ here,” she said. “This is where I am keeping the Nilla Wafers now.”
I acknowledged the new location, er, hiding place and followed up.
“Why are we whispering?,” I asked.
She ignored the question, or didn’t hear it.
Most of the time, all of the good stuff in her kitchen was out in plain sight or in the cabinets and I, my brother and sister, and all my cousins knew that whatever she had was ours and we didn’t even have to ask.
It was always that way in her kitchen for as long as I could remember.
I wondered why all of a sudden Nilla Wafers had to be kept in a safe, top secret, secure location.
It’s not like there was a combination lock, a security alarm or other protective measures there.
No, the box of Nilla Wafers, with all of its golden delicious goodness was right there, in the middle cabinet, on the second shelf, in plain sight. Well, maybe not in plain sight. I think she did put the Graham Crackers in front of it. The blue box concealed the bright yellow box. Besides, a bumbling crook would grab the Graham Crackers first and leave the Nilla Wafers.
It was a mystery. I wondered if perhaps a mouse or a rat could have made off with some of her Nilla Wafers. That wouldn't have happened, though, because Grandma had an old cat named “Tom” who was a pretty good mouser. The rest of the time, he lived a good life napping in between the houseplants on a table on the carport. Then, I thought, maybe, “Ray” the rat snake had slithered inside for a wafer or two. Surely, he had gotten tired of eating the aforementioned mice. That couldn’t be right, though. “Ray” was afraid he might get shot.
I know Daddy was lax with returning her garden hose and Uncle Vann must not have returned her axe to the hall closet once or twice, but surely they knew better than to ‘borrow’ her Nilla Wafers.
I know I probably ate the equivalent of several boxes while I was up there visiting and while we were preparing the month’s bills for mailing.
We never did solve the mystery. It is just one of those things — like the fact I’ve never seen a bigfoot, other than the one in my shoes and I’ve never seen a jabberwocky or an alien, unless you count the ewoks on Return of the Jedi.
I got to remembering the case of the missing Nilla Wafers while I was having a late night snack the other night.
Before I began snacking, I paused. I looked both ways. I opened the cabinet. I reached for the box. I sat down and enjoyed my Nilla Wafers.
The coast was clear. And, I laughed out loud.
