Fruit and Sugar and Sugar and Fruit

"Why are we always out of sugar in this house?"

I turn to look at my husband. You have got to be kidding me, I think to myself.
He is looking in the cupboard at empty sugar bowls; there is no sugar in the pantry, there is no sugar in the bulk container under the counter. I believe, yet again, we have run out of sugar. There is no white sugar. There is no brown sugar. There is no icing sugar. There is no Demara sugar I usually have around for Christmas.

"Do you not listen to me?" I respond sweetly. "We have no sugar. I have told you your Mother is going through bowls and bowls of it. Haha, it is all so funny until you realize we are going through pounds of sugar in days."

"But the kids bake."

"Yes, they do. And, your mother eats that stuff, too"

I plunge into the argument with the force of someone absolutely sure of herself.

"Shall we talk about the fruit, too? 'Cause your mother eats fruit like it is going out of style."

"Why are you so worried about what a 99 year old woman eats? Why does it matter?"

I know it doesn't matter; telling my husband I think that my 99 year old mother-in-law is playing mind games on me sounds paranoid. I can't believe she is eating all this sugar either. I have visions of cleaning her room after her death and finding mountains of the stuff hidden in her drawers. It scares me to think of where it might be hiding. When I look at the matriarch, she appears to be shrinking--becoming almost granular.

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter." I repeat the phrase under my breath over and over again as though saying it, somehow, makes it true. Of course, it matters. It is driving me crazy to no end to wonder where it all goes.

This week's fruit and sugar purchases (bought Thursday of last week):

2 lbs white sugar

2 lbs brown sugar

18 apples

6 oranges

7 litre box of peaches

7 litre box of nectarines

2 boxes of plums (about 24-30 prune plums)

We have 6 apples left and some oranges; the children don't eat oranges and my mother-in-law has no teeth, so she doesn't eat apples. It is Tuesday night. I think it matters--yes, I know, there is nothing I can do but it still matters.

Mind games. I know that is what she is doing. I am sinking under the sugary coating of paranoia.