Re-Sealed The Deal

(It is the 90s, and there is a popular brand of mass-produced, solid-block cottage cheese that is packaged in large transparent plastic bags. My mom has been buying it for us to eat nearly every day for months. Dad always opens it by forcefully ripping up the plastic bag. It has practically become a meal ritual to sit down at lunch or dinner with Dad violently ripping open another bag at the table. I’m not quite nine, and we’ve been in this country maybe three months now. Most of the food packaging here is really different than in our previous country. I’ve noticed that some of the other food items we buy have resealable zippers in their plastic bags, which we’ve never seen before, but my parents do become familiar with these at about the same time I do. One day, sitting at the kitchen table I idly examine an unopened package of the cottage cheese we’re about to eat, and I happen to look closely at the other end of the plastic bag than the one dad always rips open.)

Me: “Mom, look! Doesn’t this look just like the funny zipper on the packages of [Other Food]?”

(Mom looks over idly, mumbles something, and dismisses me. Then, they both sit down at the table.)

Me: “Dad, look at that end of the bag! Doesn’t it look just like the funny zipper from the packages of [Other Food]?”

Dad: *waves me off* “Oh, really, don’t be silly, [My Name]. Of course it doesn’t!”

(He grabs the bag and prepares to rip it open. I reach over, tug it out of his hands, turn it the other way up, and carefully tear off the top tear-off part of the bag, revealing — ta-da! — a resealable zipper; which I then also open with no force required. I present it to them.)

Mom & Dad: “…” *embarrassed silence*

(The looks on both parents’ faces were pretty priceless.)