A glass cake stand on our front porch

Meghan walked across our hard wood floors to answer the knocking at the front door.

                “They might be moldy.”  They said.

Laura and Justin stood on our front steps, a cupcake-filled glass cake stand in hand, and Laura explained.

While we were gone for Christmas vacation, a glass cake stand filled with a dozen cupcakes appeared on our porch. Laura recounted how she retrieved the stand and took it home across the street where the treats were safely placed on top of her refrigerator.

                Weeks went by. The glass cake stand was forgotten, the cupcakes untouched-waiting on top of her refrigerator.

Until now.

                Laura and Justin sweetly handed Meghan the awkward sized gift, along with a rumpled white paper. Confused glances and smiles were exchanged.

                “Want to babysit sometime?” Justin chimed in with a grin.

 I came home to find the chocolate cupcakes in a glass cake stand on our kitchen counter. I took one, decided they were too dry and crumbly to be a product of Meghan’s baking expertise.

 What was that white spot on the chocolate icing? I threw the rest away.

Noticing a rumpled white paper on the counter, I paused and read,

                “Thank you so much for the Oreo balls. They were delicious!

                Have a very merry Christmas!

                P.S. we’re going out of town tonight. We’ll get our dish on the 29^th

                -from  your neighbors, Amber and Sam.”

I smiled to myself as I remembered back to just a few weeks before.

A few weeks before, Katie and I searched through cookbook after cookbook, wanting to find a holiday recipe.  We finally found right one and two large batches of Meghan’s oreo balls made their way from our kitchen counter into three little white boxes.

“Merry Christmas!” we wrote, “from your neighbors, Meghan, Katie, and Mercy.”

The three little white boxes were placed on three different porches, waiting to be found.

One box on Laura and Justin’s porch,

One box on Sam and Amber’s porch,

One box for Shelly and Paul-filled with enough oreo balls for their red headed children.

For days I watched as Shelly and Paul’s holiday treats did not budge from their door-side spot and we soon realized Shelly and Paul were out of town.  We would bring the box back to our house, of course. But, the next day their front porch was empty. No box.  Perhaps our mailman thought they were for him, we laughed, wondering what really happened to them.

Today, Shelly called out to me from across the street.

                “Hi Mercy!...Thanks for the oreo balls. They were delicious!”

                “O good” I said, “I wasn’t sure if you got them.”

They were delicious,

they were delicious,

 they were delicious?

Going inside I began to think. I wondered if our oreo balls had also been left on top of someone’s refrigerator for three weeks.  Did Shelly get a moldy, dry version of our oreo balls? Were they as delicious as that cupcake I ate yesterday?

But it doesn’t really matter.

Mostly I’m glad Shelly remembered my name,

that Laura and Justin were watching out for our house while we were away,

 and that the Christmas oreo balls meant so much to Amber that she wanted to leave us a dozen cupcakes in her glass cake stand on our front porch.

I won’t tell Amber her cupcakes were moldy. I won’t even tell her we got them just a few days ago. I’ll probably say something like, “Thank you so much for the cupcakes. They were delicious. We did have a very merry Christmas. How’s life?”