Monday lunch: Frosted Shredded Wheat

to listen, read aloud

 Frosted Shredded Wheat 

Axel Sundstrøm

“You really should meet Axel before you go home,” Roz was telling Uncle Albert at supper two nights ago. “Ted doesn’t have many friends.” She looked at me – a millisecond of hesitation: “It’s not that people don’t like him – they do; but he isn’t close with . . . anybody, hardly. But he and Axel . . . .” Her voice trailed off.

     “Maybe I won’t go home,” Uncle Albert said. “I’m beginning to like it here. The food is better.” Roz coughed as if her mouthful of meatloaf had started down the wrong way. Uncle Albert said, “I’m kidding.

     “And I’m not,” he went on. And he began thinking aloud about getting an apartment – or a room in a boarding house: were there still such things? An apartment more likely: maybe he could find some college students to share with. When he said he might not go home, he didn’t mean he intended to live with us. Then, there was silence – a thousand milliseconds, two thousand milliseconds, three thousand milliseconds. Then he said, “I would like to meet Sundstrøm. I was disappointed he wasn’t preaching the Sunday we went.”

     “That was last Sunday,” I said.

So, yesterday we went again. Axel was preaching, but he didn’t have anything to say. Still, Uncle Albert shook his hand after the service, and they made a date for coffee this morning.

When he came back, I asked Uncle Albert what they’d talked about. He said, “I liked him. I said, ‘You didn’t have anything to say yesterday.’ He acknowledged it was true. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘I did have something to say, because there is always something to say about the gospel; but I didn’t say it very well.’ He hesitated, looked at me, then: ‘Actually, you’re right. Whether or not I had anything to say, I didn’t say anything. Good to know someone was listening,’ he said.”

     “That’s it?” I asked.

     “Just about,” Uncle Albert said. “I asked him if he knew anything about apartments, places to stay. He doesn’t know any more than you or your paramour does.”

     “What kind of word is ‘paramour’?” I asked.

     “Your significant other, then,” he said.

Frosted Shredded Wheat

I looked it up anyway. Apparently it needn’t mean “mistress” or “concubine”; it can mean “sweetheart.” And it was originally a term for Christ (for women) or the Virgin Mary (for men).

     I asked Uncle Albert if he knew that. He said he thought he had known it at one time, but he hadn’t known it today until I told him.

We had cereal for lunch. He had Grape Nuts with a banana. I had Frosted Shredded Wheat.

02.20.17