The Great Beanie Wienie Disaster
(Warning: This story is not for the faint of gut.)
The HOME Van is a gang of volunteers who go out twice a week to campsites and parks, delivering food and miscellaneous items to homeless people. The food includes a supper bag with a sandwich, hard-boiled egg, granola bar, fruit and water, a cup of iced tea or hot cocoa, and homemade cornbread and soup.
HOME Van soup is really good. It's thick with vegetables, beans, potatoes, rice or pasta, and meat (or meat substitute if made by a vegetarian). The people who live in the woods love it, and often take seconds and thirds if there’s enough. A cup of soup is my supper on Thursdays, when I ride the van. It’s more fun to share a meal than to stand by while others eat.
I coordinate the soup rota, and when no one else can, I make the soup. Though I love to make soup for my family, five gallons is a challenge. Browning five pounds of meat, chopping all those vegetables, sauteeing the onions and celery – it’s too much, and becomes slightly disgusting. It also takes a good part of the day, and transferring the boiling hot soup into the thermos, then lugging it to the car, is a pain in the neck.
A couple of times I went all out, but now, on the rare occasions when we don’t have anyone to make soup, I make beanie wienies: ten pounds of chopped hotdogs and six giant cans of pork and beans.
5 GALLONS OF BEANIE WIENIES (AND 10 DOZEN EGGS)
This should be easy. What could go wrong? Usually, nothing, and most of our homeless friends love beanie wienies. But there was a day…
It was late November, a chilly day by Florida standards, and a good day for eating beans and hot dogs. After a morning making sandwiches at HOME Van Central (Arupa and Bob’s house), I brought the five-gallon pot and thermos home. I chopped the dogs and opened the cans, stirred it all up and put the pot on a low flame. Then I relaxed with a book, popping up every twenty minutes to stir.
Finally the stew was simmering. I ladled it into the thermos with a two-cup Pyrex measure. This is a hot and gloppy job. Blobs of bean landed all over me, the stove, and the floor. When the thermos was full to the brim, I screwed on the top, wiped off the sides, and cleaned up the floor, the stove, and me. I put the scorched pot to soak with a layer of baking soda and an inch of water at the bottom.
All set to go. Ten dozen eggs in the front seat, two big pans of cornbread in the back. I had worn-out knees back then, instead of my blessed bionics, and toting the thermos to the car was a struggle, but I got it up on the back seat, and headed out.
I was turning onto Main Street when the thermos fell over and the top popped off. Five gallons of beanie wienies at flood stage covers a lot of territory. They flowed over the back seat and the floor, drowning the cornbread.
I had no cell phone to call Arupa, and anyway, the van was going out in ten minutes; there was nothing she could do. The people who live in the woods would have to make do with bag suppers and hot chocolate.
At HOME Van Central Arupa opened the door to help me unload. Quicker than a flash mob, every fly in Gainesville arrived for the feast. Where had they been, and how did they know? We put the eggs in the van, marveling at the mess. I skipped the Thursday night run, and went home to clean up.
I ladled and scooped and wiped, but it was way beyond me. Fortunately, Steve, Amanda’s aunt’s boyfriend, had worked as a car detailer. He came over the next morning, and in an hour or two the car looked as good as a six-year-old Corolla owned by a slovenly grandmother ever will. The smell persisted, but we thought it would dissipate over time.
It didn’t dissipate. It got worse. Steve came back to try again. This time he removed the back seat, and found that the flies had done their job. There were maggots everywhere.
Who isn’t disgusted by maggots? Only a mother fly. I excused myself, and Steve cleaned them all up, then sprayed the car again with a nasty floral deodorant. For months I drove around town with memories of maggots, breathing air scented with beanie wienies and chemical flowers.
We bought a new thermos for the Van. Now when I bring soup, I strap the thermos into the front passenger seat, and put out a mother’s restraining hand when I turn or stop. The Great Beanie Wienie Disaster became one of our many stories, which I share with you in honor of the ninth anniversary of the HOME Van. click
ARUPA AND THE HOME VAN
NEXT WEEK: This Short-Term Memory Thing
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