The One with The Jar

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Our girls have super generous hearts (of course, when they want to). For Teacher Appreciation week, they made their teachers bath bombs using our homemade bath bomb recipe. No, they’ve never made me any, but their teachers get all the goods.

Instead of packaging them in something that would likely get thrown away, we used mason jars. They are trendy and I think useful. At the very least, they make a nice pen holder on a desk.

They wanted to give some to their karate instructor, Master John, who was very excited about them.

After using them, however, he attempted to return the empty, yet clean jar. I explained our thinking in that they were good for keeping and reusing and he said “we aren’t really jar people.”

Fair enough.

So, I told him, jokingly, if you are returning a container, you should return it with something in it. I think this was a challenge and he thought it was game on. So he took it back and accepted.

It wasn’t a challenge, nor an expectation, but The Jar became a thing.

It was returned to us with chocolate covered almonds. That was a seriously tasty treat.

Then, E used up his last pony tail holder aka hair tie (what do you call those things). So, I grabbed a pack at the store to up his stash.

The jar was sitting on the counter almost emptied of almonds.

It tempted me.

It called to me.

You can’t let this go this easily.

So, those almonds were removed, and the hair ties were placed in the jar.

Poor Master John didn’t see it coming.

But, he took it.

And, a few days later, peanut m&ms were received. Which of course the kids love at the end of karate and the whole class enjoys them! (We checked for allergies first.)

I thought it would end there. He doesn’t want the jar. We’ll keep it.

Then, he gave me forms to fill out for their first tests. Which required a payment in check form.

I wasn’t going to do it.

But, it had to be done.

The checks and forms went back in the jar.

That time he laughed.

I told him he should take them out and return the jar. I know when a joke should end.

So I thought.

Then we got caramel sea salt pretzels.

I’m pretty sure he’s trying to gift us with high blood sugar.

The Jar couldn’t stop there.

During one of the classes, he mentioned liking sand and seashells.

Does he really? I don’t know. He knew we were going to Cancun. But, he said it.

So, I scoured the beach, collected the shells and brought back a coffee cup full of sand for that jar.

I thought this meant I won.

I thought wrong.

The oldest two decided to bake homemade cookies (mom brag…they did it completely with zero help from me) and wanted to bring some to karate to share with friends.

The sharing happened and there was one cookie left.

Master John asked for the cookie.

And the container.

The game continues.

This time, with a new container.