Things I Cannot Stand: Numero Uno

As promised, this is the beginning of my series, Things I Cannot Stand. Again, these are in no particular order because I hate equally, so here you go, the first thing I cannot stand.

#1- The smell of green beans. It's true, it makes me gag. This all goes back to my early childhood when my mom thought it was a truly swell idea to can her own green beans. Who does that? And why on earth is it called canning if you put it into jars? Shouldn't we just call it jarring? But anyways, my mom would "can" her own green beans and it made our house reek like some sort of old cat came in and urinated everywhere just before dying, then a rude house guest came in and spilled 3 day old coffee everywhere. I'm not kidding. It smelled like old coffee and pee..and dead animals, mixed. As if that wasn't bad enough, that horrid odor concoction stayed in the house for DAYS. After that smell, there truly wasn't an ice cubes chance that shizzle was going to touch my tongue.

I actually remember seeing one of those fire safety things on TV telling you to put a blanket at the bottom of the door to keep the smoke out, so I tried it, seeing if it would keep that smell out. Let me tell you, that suggestion is going to kill a lot of children. It didn't even help filter the odor, I just ended up with a stinky blanket and no place to hide from the smell. Now my mom hasn't canned her own anything since circa 1986, but I can still smell that old coffee and pee-pee badness, and it's still burning my nose hairs. I honestly believe that green beans (and okra) are gifts from hell, so thank you satan. To this day I will not even try green beans because of how horrible they smell. However, I married a man who likes green beans (and okra..what is wrong with this person who pays my bills?) and I believe if he could just change one thing about me, he'd make me cook green beans. I hope he's not holding his breath....he'll die fo' sho!

Oh, and by the way, I think there’s still at least one jar each of canned green beans and canned tomatoes in my parent’s basement. It’s like my mom was saving during the cold war, you know just in case, but that came and went, and Y2K came and went and at this point I think there’s some sort of emotional attachment to them.