Five Pack

Whenever the Mild Wife or I feel like having a snack, there are a few go-to's that we tend to have often. I've mentioned at least one of them before: the peanut butter and nut/fruit mix. In fact, I still have that one fairly regularly.

Now, I don't think I can quite explain how these particular items were the ones that became such staples, but over time, we have noticed that we fall back on them. We certainly appreciate the taste of them, or we wouldn't keep eating them. Still, there are a bunch of things that we like eating that we don't have as regularly as some of these snacks. I don't eat mango all the time, for example, even though that's probably one of my favorite fruits.

I mention all of this because quesadillas are part of that snack rotation. It's a fairly simple snack to make, and it can be quite filling. All we really need to do is heat the tortilla and cheese on the stove for a little bit, and we're set. In terms of simplicity, it's really hard to beat (it's no slouch in the flavor department, either).

So, on a random weekday a few weeks ago, the Mild Wife decided to have quesadillas. I don't remember if that's what we had for dinner or if she was feeling particularly hungry, but she decided to make three of them. That's happened before, so I didn't really think much of it. In fact, the fact that I don't remember the details should tell you how much of a non-event that is in the Mild Home. Regardless, I remember that she cooked/prepared three quesadillas.

In this particular instance, we had bought a slightly different brand of tortillas, so we'd purchased a smaller pack. Rather than one of those 30-packs, we'd gotten an 8-pack. Again, I don't remember the circumstances that led to that purchase, but I'm certain that we paid for an 8-pack. Since we'd only used three of those, that meant we could still have quesadillas on another night for dinner and still have some left over for a snack. After all, there was more than half of the pack left.

However, the next time we opened the fridge in order to make quesadillas, we noticed that there were only two tortillas left in the bag. Now, the Mild Wife and I can handle basic arithmetic, so we knew something was off about this. We were supposed to have started with eight, and we had used three. Grade school subtraction indicated that we should have five left. But, somehow, there were only two tortillas left.

The Mild Wife and I both wondered if we'd cooked some on a different day and forgotten about it, but we both came up blank. As far as we could remember, we had only used the tortillas that one night. Puzzled, I floated the idea that maybe we had accidentally doubled up on the tortillas the first time we made quesadillas. That seemed unlikely, but it would make the math line up. However, the Mild Wife quickly pointed out that we both would have noticed had that been the case. In short, we were quite certain that we had only used three tortillas that first time.

Well, as Sherlock Holmes used to say, if you eliminate all of the impossible things, whatever's left, even if improbable, must be the truth. So, as strange as it seems, we think we may have been shipped an improbable five-pack of tortillas. Yup, five. Not eight like it said on the order, but five. That's the only thing that would make sense of our experience, and leave us with two tortillas.

Incidentally, we decided not to have quesadillas for dinner (one each wouldn't have been nearly enough food), and save them for a snack for another day. This five pack sure did make things interesting.